The Only Question Left: Will The Detox Party Win And Dump Obama?

There’s really only one question left after the midterm elections: Will Democrats who are rapidly joining the Detox Party win or will Obama Dimocrats win?

Obama Dimocrats are fighting to continue their serpentine grip on the Dimocratic Party – that is what the Nancy Pelousy fight is all about. It does not make sense to have an extremely unpopular leader in the Senate (Harry Reid) and an even more unpopular leader in the House of Representatives (Nancy Pelosi). Nancy Pelousy in particular forced votes on House members which killed them (such as Cap and Trade). She is guilty of losing the House majority because she pushed very bad legislation. Instead of dumping her Obama Dimocrats need to keep her in position to retain power.

The idiot left of the “creative class” are so stupid (yup, we mean the DailyKooks via Haiku Bowers) they are supporting the very structure that has repeatedly spat at them. The “logic” these “creative class”, very well educated but supremely stupid, clowns employ is that Nancy is a “true progressive” and they must fight for her. Putting aside the health scam legislation which betrayed the pro-choice community and any chance of real health care reform (in favor of Big PhaRma and Big Insurance profits), why bother supporting an establishment that has repeatedly spit on you? The NothingLeft “creative class” types are so debased that all they have left is a strategy to support the establishment which has so utterly failed them.

Michael Tomasky, a once reliable voice for sanity who became an Obama apologist of the first order, is in Detox mode:

“What matters is, you lose 65 seats, you resign. Period. There should not be a question.”

Contrast the “creative class” idiots with the many women and men who are Tea Party activists. Instead of celebrating the election of the Republican establishment the Tea Party activists are issuing warnings and threats. Those elected as Tea Party candidates are likewise full of warnings.

Marco Rubio who will be on the 2012 Republican ticket (he is in Israel today to quickly ramp up for his 2012 run) was selected to respond to Barack Obama on Saturday on behalf of the Republican Party. Rubio did not celebrate, he issued a word of thanks to the electorate and a warning to the Republican Party to not squander the “second chance” they have been given.

Marco Rubio will be on the Republican national ticket in 2012. There is no doubt about that. Politico signals that obvious fact today with an article on the Latino vote and 2012:

“Hispanic voters saved the Democratic Party Tuesday – buoying Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, keeping California blue, playing an outsized role in preserving the party’s Senate majority and demonstrating a partisan loyalty Democrats didn’t exactly earn in two years of inaction on immigration policy.

But that support is anything but certain for 2012 and both parties face difficult and immediate choices when it comes to the Latino vote as they position themselves for the presidential election. [snip]

An election eve poll conducted by Latino Decisions found Hispanics weren’t nearly as motivated to vote Democratic as they were to show solidarity with the Latino community. Forty-seven percent of Latinos in eight key states told the pollsters they voted to “represent and support” Hispanics, 31 percent to support Democrats and 12 percent to back Republicans. [snip]

With new, high-profile Hispanic leaders like Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, New Mexico Governor Susanna Martinez and Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, the party is ripe, they say, for a rebranding based on Democratic failures.”

Rubio on a national ticket solves a problem for Republicans that Obama/Biden does not solve – and Biden is not the problem. The problem is and will be Barack Obama.

“Gay men, lesbians and bisexuals who self-identified to exit pollsters made up 3 percent of those casting ballots in House races on Tuesday, and 31 percent of them voted Republican. By itself, that number is amazing, especially when you consider that way too many people think being gay and voting Democratic are one in the same. But that percentage is ominous news for a White House viewed with suspicion by many gay men and lesbians, because that’s four percentage points higher than the change election of 2008.”

Obama Dimocrats, as they circle their battered wagons around Nancy Pelousy, answer that their “situation comedy” voters did not come out in 2010 because Obama was not on the ballot. Obama Dimocrats argue that things will be different in 2012 when their celebrity idol comes back in fashion (are beanie babies next? pet rocks? Bobby Sherman? Pokeman? mood rings? MC Hammer? Vanilla Ice?) and on the ballot. This argument is one that the Detox Party, particularly elected officials will not accept as valid.

“At first glance, the 2012 election looks likely to be a very good one for Republicans. Democrats must defend 23 seats while there are just 10 GOP seats up for grabs.

And, it’s not just raw numbers that make the cycle daunting for Democrats — it’s where the races are taking place. In addition to Nelson, who represents a state where President Obama won just 42 percent in 2008, Democrats will have to defend seats in Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia, Florida, North Dakota, Montana and Virginia — not exactly the friendliest of states for their side at the moment.”

Call them the Detox 23. Even Claire McCaskill’s dimwitted children won’t be advocating for close ties to Obama in 2012. [McCaskill is #1 to defeat on our immutable List“.]

“Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink pointed an accusatory finger Friday at what she called a “tone-deaf” Obama White House to explain why she narrowly lost her campaign.

In an interview with POLITICO, Sink said the administration mishandled the response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, doesn’t appreciate the political damage done by healthcare reform and argued that her GOP opponent’s strategy of tying her to the president did grave damage to her candidacy in the state’s conservative Panhandle.

“They got a huge wake-up call two days ago, but unfortunately they took a lot of Democrats down with them,” said Sink of the White House.”

“(ABC News) –You may recall that during President Obama’s vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, on August 27 he took in a round of golf at the Vineyard Golf Club in Edgartown, playing golf with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Democratic lawyer, business man and éminence grise Vernon Jordan; and White House trip director (and former golf pro) Marvin Nicholson.

The pool report at the time said that “We are told Bloomberg and Obama talked in the clubhouse for about 15 mins about the economy. They then went to the driving range.”

Apparently – at least from a second-hand report – the Obama-Bloomberg convo could have gone better.

In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, conservative media magnate Rupert Murdoch says ”Bloomberg said it was a pleasant day. In conversation he put a few ideas … He said it was like verbal ping pong.”

Bloomberg, according to Murdoch, “came back and said ‘I never met in my life such an arrogant man’.”

“Why not? Zeus would clearly rather be out doing the stuff he’s good at, like campaigning or playing golf or cooking up increasingly complex metaphors involving cars and Slurpees to explain the American political landscape. As Will Smith once said, “Barack Obama as a person is a fantastic individual, but Barack Obama as an idea marks an evolutionary flash point for humanity.” Let him go be an “idea” while someone else deals with the bricks-and-mortar stuff.

It’s not like that’s what we elect presidents to do, right?

The country’s chief executive officer needs a chief operating officer to run the day-to-day government, to cut through budget battles, political fiefdoms, parochialism and inertia to assist the president in keeping this country moving. Let the president’s chief of staff manage the White House – an enormous responsibility in itself. We need a chief operating officer to manage everything else…

Several recent examples of government action and inaction underscore the need for a COO. Few would dispute that the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to perform during the Hurricane Katrina tragedy and that the Minerals Management Service fell far short of its mission leading up to the Deepwater Horizon crisis this year. The COO would be responsible for ensuring that such situations do not happen again…

The choice of the first COO will be critical for the future of the office, much as the selection of the first president shaped that office for our nation. Fortunately, an ideal candidate comes to mind: New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. He is a man of well-documented business savvy who has also exhibited an ability to apply private-sector know-how to a diverse government enterprise. He has experience with public budgets and managing private-sector payrolls. His political status as an independent makes him uniquely nonpartisan in an age of vicious factions.

President Obama has the authority to create the position of COO within the executive branch, but he should consult with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders and ask their support for legislation to create a statutory position that would remain after he left office, much like that of the chairman of the Federal Reserve or the secretary of the Treasury.

The fact that Kerrey and his co-authors are suggesting procedural means for Obama to create this position makes me think that they’re really, truly serious about this inane idea and not just floating it as a conceptual critique of the size and inefficiency of government. In fact, what this really is — whether they know it or not — is a “Bloomberg for president” piece filtered through Kerrey’s loyalty to his party. He doesn’t want to endorse a third-party run by Bloomy against The One, so instead we get this tortured power-sharing proposal premised on the belief that Obama is simply not up to the tasks of his job the way Bloomberg would be. Frankly, I think it’s more patronizing/insulting to Obama to float something like this than to endorse another candidate outright.”

Everyone is sounding like Big Pink these days. Obama is not qualified for the job. The disagreement is on who to replace the boob. We think we are right in our candidate selection. In February of 2009 we wrote:

“The only sweet sounds Obama could emit that would make the markets and the world rejoice is that Hillary will continue to Save the World and Bill Clinton will run the economy and all domestic programs.”

Ha!

No stranger to arrogance, another Obama Hopium Guzzler declares his love for Obama is over. Mort Zuckerman says it’s America’s love affair with Obama that is over, which is true, but Mort is really, really, speaking for himself in Detox Party mode:

“Mort Zuckerman: America’s Love Affair With Obama Is Over

The administration is running out of time to lower unemployment and fix the economy

It was the worst of times for the Democrats and the best of times for the Republicans—almost. The GOP did not succeed in capturing the Senate, or dethroning the Democratic leader, but with an energy boost from the Tea Party movement it certainly reflected the anger and dismay of voters who see their country foundering at home and abroad.

The results represent a sharp rebuke to President Obama, who interpreted his 2008 “vote for change” as a mandate for changing everything and all at once. Right from the start, he got his priorities badly wrong, sacrificing the need to help create jobs in favor of his determination to pass Obamacare. It was the state of the economy that demanded genius and concentration, and it just did not get it. The president will now have to respond to public anger, not with anger management and, not, please God, with still more rhetoric. The unusually revealing exit polls spell it all out—how he re-energized the Republican Party, lost the independent center, and failed to overcome the widespread sense that the country is heading in the wrong direction. [snip]

Independents and women fled the Democrats; among white women, no less than 57 percent chose the GOP. [snip]

It is apparent that Obama didn’t seem to have understood the problems of the average American.”

Oh Mort where was thy sting when it came time to vet Obama with your Big Media publications? Oh Mort where was your understanding of the problems of the average American when it counted in 2008?

“He came across as a young man in a grown-up’s game—impressive but not presidential. A politician but not a leader, managing American policy at home and American power abroad with disturbing amateurishness. Indeed, there was a growing perception of the inability to run the machinery of government and to find the right people to manage it. A man who was once seen as a talented and even charismatic rhetorician is now seen as lacking real experience or even the ability to stop America’s decline. “Yes we can,” he once said, but now America asks, “Can he?”

The last two years have exposed to the public the risk that came with voting an inexperienced politician into office at a time when there was a crisis in America’s economy, as the nation contended with a financial freeze, a painful recession, and two wars. [snip]

No great speech is going to change the fundamental fact that millions of people are either jobless or underemployed at a time when only a quarter of the American population describes the job market as good.

Why did Obama put his health plan so far ahead of the economy? To do what the Clintons couldn’t? [snip]

Then he accepted the lopsided bills that emerged and the political corruption that accompanied them—the very processes he condemned during his campaign and that are so much distrusted by a broad section of the American public.”

Clue for Mort: Obama is from the Corrupt Chicago machine. What did Mort expect when he extolled a corrupt boob?

Remember when we asked “Hope for what? Change to what?” Mort answers us much too late, with this:

“When lawmakers had no time to even read the bills, it gave the impression that what was important was passing anything, no matter how ineffectual. Obama had promised he would change “politics as usual.” He changed it all right, but for the worse.”

Those still on the Hopium, those joining the Detox Party must know this is what faces all Obama supporters in 2012:

“Today the polls indicate that the president has reached a point where a majority of Americans have no confidence, or just some, that he will make the right decisions for the country. There isn’t a single critical problem on which the president has a positive rating. It didn’t help when he kept on and on asserting that he had inherited a terrible situation from the Bush administration. Yes, enough, and sir, the country elected you to solve problems, not to complain about them.

It did not help that the administration had completely lost the support of the business community, where virtually no one has a good word to say about the administration and where there is no go-to, high-level businessman in Obama’s inner circle. [snip]

Obama’s job approval rating has fallen well below 50 percent overall, but the numbers are lower among whites and even lower among working-class whites, whose revolt may be the defining characteristic of 2010 (counting even more than the rise of the mostly white and affluent Tea Party movement). These were the famous “Reagan Democrats.” They felt that the economy was collapsing around them and that their president was out of touch. In addition, as those exit polls confirm, Democrats have for some time been losing vast pieces of their core constituencies among women, independents, college graduates, and the elderly“

“The public disillusionment has now hardened. In a Quinnipiac poll this summer, only 28 percent of white voters said they would back Obama for a second term if the election were held then. Still, those results do not mean the public will go Republican next time. It depends on the candidate and the party. [snip]

Oh, boy he leaves a trail of disenchantment and dissatisfaction wherever he goes..

God’s truth, the city was glad to see him go.

‘Coz not since 26/11, has South Mumbai been witness to such drama over security, such isolation of Colaba and Nariman Point, even Fountain, Metro, Mahapalika Marg and CST, all of which President Barack Obama fleetingly visited in his whistlestop trip to Mumbai. The governments central and state may say what they want, but Obama’s visit has left a bitter aftertaste in the mouth of the Mumbaikar who is accustomed to sweetness around this time of the year because of the sacrifices the city had to make over Diwali to accommodate this guest. True, he is the President of the US, arguably the most powerful man on earth, but so what – how does that matter to us, people felt, and why should our festival be ruined?

C’mon, Mumbai has had Bill Clinton stay at the Taj, and only one floor was occupied, other guests hung around the corridors hoping to bump into him, he dined at restaurants in and out of the hotel, and the jazz band playing at the Starboard even kept a sax ready in the hope that the President would jam with them. But the difference between then and now is 9/11 and 26/11. And while Obama’s visit might cost the US taxpayer $200 million a day, it is the poor common man in Mumbai who felt the pinch most…

If obama isn’t a laughing stock now, he will definitely be one at the end of his first term.

November 05, 2010

Mr. Obama Is No Bill Clinton
By Peter Heck

After Barack Obama’s self-described shellacking at the polls last Tuesday, astute political observers began postulating and pontificating whether or not he would seek to moderate his agenda from the far-left lollapalooza he has been pursuing since inauguration day.

Without question, such a move would be a humbling experience for a man who chose to characterize his first two years in office by hubris and unparalleled condescension toward his conquered political adversaries.

After all, how does a man who — as recently as two weeks ago — told Republicans that “they can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back,” and that they shouldn’t “do a lot of talking” reach out a hand of bipartisanship when the tables turn as dramatically as they have?

How does he expect to maintain any shred of credibility when he proclaims that a Republican victory means the people want the two parties to “work together,” given that two years ago he declared that a Democrat victory gave him license to lock Republicans out of policy-making and call all the shots?

How does he face a gavel-wielding John Boehner and expect cooperation when after winning the presidency, he boasted in Boehner’s face that “elections have consequences and at the end of the day, I won”?

Attempting any of this would require eating so much crow that it would frighten even Alfred Hitchcock. Yet that was the move many political analysts felt was incumbent upon the president. They argued that he must emulate Bill Clinton and move to the center if he wants to accomplish anything and salvage his presidency.

But the president gave them less than 24 hours to discuss and debate his intentions before confirming what many of us already knew…Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton.

Holding a press conference at the White House, Obama was asked whether he dismissed the notion that the election results were a rejection of his policies. His answer: yes.

More specifically, when pressed on the fate of his signature government health care takeover, Obama intoned, “We’d be misreading the election if we thought the American people want to see us for the next two years re-litigate arguments we had over the last two years.”

It is tough to imagine a more incoherent conclusion. In the months preceding the midterm elections, polls consistently showed that support for the Republican Party was far from overwhelming. The electorate had warmed very little towards the party who had so recently betrayed their trust. So how did moderately popular Republicans deliver one of the most extraordinary congressional takeovers in history? Simply put, they ran a national campaign as the party that will reverse Obama’s agenda, specifically repealing ObamaCare.

What is more, the number of Democrats who campaigned for reelection not just by distancing themselves from that policy, but by actually running against it was embarrassing. And those who didn’t — those who stood by their ObamaCare votes — went down in flames.

Figuring out what the electorate was saying then is not rocket science. In fact, it’s the same message the voters in Massachusetts had sent back in January when they elected a man to the Senate, Scott Brown, who campaigned as #41 (his election represented the 41st vote needed for Republicans to filibuster and stop ObamaCare in the first place). And it’s the same message the public was sending when the largest grassroots political movement the country has seen for generations stormed congressional town hall meetings and marched on Washington, D.C. in an effort to prevent the health care takeover.

Yet then, as now, Barack Obama arrogantly ignored the electorate.

Call it stubbornness or foolishness, but this much is clear: the president is not changing course. He is, above all else, a radical ideologue committed to pursuing his left-wing agenda. He is convinced that if he lectures us long enough, we will begin to understand his brilliance and appreciate his greatness.

Not that any of this should surprise us. After all, it was Obama and the Democrats’ fundamental misreading of the 2008 presidential election that actually brought us to this point to begin with. Rather than recognize his election for what it was — a vote for symbolism (youth, energy, change, charisma, biracial diversity) over substance (not even his most ardent supporters could name a single Obama legislative accomplishment) — they regarded it as a mandate for an unapologetic crusade of radical liberal progressivism.

The results of that misinterpretation are self-evident: an enraged electorate, disillusioned supporters, and devastation at the polls. Yet despite all this, Mr. Obama has signaled that he has no desire to take correction from the unwashed masses he has spent two years pretending he is above.

Unlike Bill Clinton, it appears that Barack Obama’s pride will prevent him from changing course as the people have demanded. This most likely means that unlike Bill Clinton, he won’t need to worry about writing a second inaugural address.

Wbboei – thank you. You are right – our Prime Minister is a bot, but hopefully after last week he has seen what a real politician of integrity is like. He was waxing lyrical about Obama this morning on breakfast television though, so he obviously has a way to go.

pm317 – thank you also. Yes I agree that the American public was ready to embrace Hillary – I think perhaps the question should have been “are the American media and the DNC ready for a woman president?”, but I still think it was interesting that he posed the question at all, and interesting that the reply Hillary gave was a thoughtful “I hope so”.

pm317, thanks very much for those videos, we had a great diwali dinner at my indian american former neigbor’s home yesterday.

they turned on all the lights in their home? also, they had so many sweets, my favorite, don’t know what it is called, but they were these dark brown round dumpling like balls and they were drenched in this sweet syrup. and my other new favourite was this cold pistachio ice cream like dessert, they said its not ice cream, but something simlar. Very very yummy.

this is a huge festival in India? right? no wonder those poor people are pissed that their celebrations were ruined because of Waffles.

Admin, she packed Malia’s sweaters by mistake.. but she does that often.

Here is another snippet of a video of Obamas at the PM’s residence (I think) for dinner. The woman in the sari who looks Caucasian is actually Sonia Gandhi (DiL of Indira Gandhi), the Congress party president which is quite a powerful position. Interesting in the video that Obama kind of quickly walked away from her, leaving all the ladies together. Notice how Singh politely waves to her to join as Obama walks away a bit arrogantly. A tidbit about Sonia Gandhi, Italian by birth, she seems like a remarkable woman in her own right. She exhibits a quiet strength and quite a bit of philanthropy which is why she has stuck around in India and seems devoted to that country. One could argue it is all about power but with power comes responsibility and accountability, you have to do the work to exert power.

“Notice how Singh politely waves to her to join as Obama walks away a bit arrogantly. ”

pm317 — the fool [Waffles] probably had no idea who the heck she was. I’m sure this is will not go unnoticed in the press, nor will it go unnoticed in the private conversations of the MPs (?is that right?) once Waffle and Mrs. Waffles leave India.

golab jamun? yes that sounds like what they told me what it was. Sorry, I am bad at remembering names.

no, it wasn’t a rice pudding, it was a creamy ice cream like thing sprinked with pictachios, and it was in a cone shape, I thought it was ice cream, I will have to call them and ask what it is so I can order it the next time I go to an indian restaurant. It was so tasty, much tastier than regular ice cream, and it was in a cone shape, guess it was molded. very very yummy.

I just read what Madam pukeosi said about tuesday’s election. “Its a messaging problem”, see y’all, we are the stupid ones, so they have to dumb down even more all the “awesome” things they are doing TO us.
(they are going to hire more communications directors, etc.)

My word, these people have lost their minds, never did I think I would be more disgusted by the democrat party than then repub party.

pm317 — ras malai is white, right? I think I have had that in the past. The indian restaurant we frequent has a dessert display as part of the restaurant, but its within the restaurant, everytime we go, can’t resist, we bring back a box of sweets. So so good, and very hard to resist.

ecaost is right. Party president is more powerful than here. In addition to the woman ruling party president, they have a woman speaker, a woman foreign secretary (career equivalent of SoS), a woman US ambassador, ..

President Clinton visited India in March 2000. Contrast the way the Indian press is covering the obama visit now with this report on Bill Clinton’s 2000 visit. Indian Express headlined thus calling him Raja (King).

India loves the Clintons. Hillary as SOS was there last year on a 5-day visit and she had a whale of a time there. I think it was her third visit to India.
During the primaries, Obama people got jealous of the overwhelming support (and lots of money) that Hillary got from Indian Americans. His campaign called her Sen. Clinton (D-Punjab).

I think Obama is annoying the Indian population both here and abroad. I was out grocery shopping today, and had a youngish Indian fellow run halfway across the parking lot to grin at me and point at my bumper sticker, giving me the old thumbs up.

My sticker says:
“GTFO – coming 2012” (The “O” part of get the eff out is the Obama logo)

ABC News has learned that because of the dangerous clouds of ash spewing from an Indonesian volcano, 48 hours before Air Force One is due to touch down in the capital Jakarta White House officials are concerned President Obama may not be able to make the trip.

I remember Bush was very well received as well in India. Both he and Laura were very gracious and humble guests and I remember watching the news reports from India and they were very respectful, certainly not calling him a “newbie”.

guess the Indians have figured out, its not an American thing, its an Obamas thing that they are very very annoyed at.

That Indonesia trip will be canceled. The troubles they have been having started even before Obama left the US. I don’t know how they can entertain a state visit when they are having all these emergencies. And don’t know why Obama WH can’t just cancel the trip. What a mess..

“The country’s chief executive officer needs a chief operating officer to run the day-to-day government, to cut through budget battles, political fiefdoms, parochialism and inertia to assist the president in keeping this country moving.

Let the president’s chief of staff manage the White House – an enormous responsibility in itself. We need a chief operating officer to manage everything else.”
______________________

This definitely sounds like a Soros off-set idea for plan B because the infantile, inept, president can’t handle the job.

If this idea is floated to the public, I think the anger aimed at the president will be ten fold what it is right now. Calls for Obama’s resignation would be blowing in the wind in an instant. Obama and/or his wife bear no redeeming qualities that make them necessary or irreplaceable for the future of our country. Obama is useless to his Party, the country and most of all, himself.

I don’t think his advisers ever dreamed his trip to India would result in further embarrassment to him and his wife leaving India with such a poor reflection of American diplomacy. They most likely regret the idea Obama could accomplish a pr mission sealing a done business deal done before he even arrived in India. The back-story has to have been couched in words like: “It would be impossible for him to screw this UP?”

The U.S. and Australia begin talks today on further aligning foreign policy goals and deepening defense ties, including possibly increasing U.S. use of Australian military bases.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd lead the talks that will focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, the peaceful uses of space, counterterrorism and cyber security. The so-called AUSMIN forum brings the foreign and defense ministers from the countries together for annual discussions.

The leaders from the two nations are “going to look for new opportunities” to work together, Clinton said yesterday before today’s talks begin in Melbourne.

This year marks AUSMIN’s 25th anniversary and the 70th year of formal relations between Australia and the U.S. Those milestones come as Australia and other Asia-Pacific nations are adjusting to China’s rising power and President Barack Obama and Clinton work to reassert U.S. leadership in the region.

Australia and the U.S. are aligned through the ANZUS Treaty signed in 1951 between the two countries and New Zealand. Australia has 1,550 soldiers in Afghanistan after withdrawing its troops from Iraq in 2009. The U.S. and Australia also collaborate on intelligence-gathering and combating sea piracy.

Australians will use the discussions to shore up their alliance with the U.S. and through it, their security, said Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based policy group.

“There’s a big debate going on in Australia about how they look out for their own interests in light of the changing dynamic in the region with China rising,” Lohman said in a telephone interview. “There’s some anxiety about what exactly the world is going to look like in 30 years.”

Military Ties

Rudd said Nov. 6 that his country would be happy to deepen military cooperation with the U.S.

Australia would “welcome the United States making greater use of our ports and our training facilities, our test-firing ranges,” Rudd said at an appearance with Clinton soon after her arrival in Melbourne. “That has been the case in decades past and will be the case for decades in the future.”

“It does give the possibility, of course, for further joint exercises, further collaboration,” Gillard said on Nine Network television.

After U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Clinton, Rudd and Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith meet for the AUSMIN talks, they are expected to issue a communiqué outlining areas of agreement.

Clinton is taking part at the end of a two-week tour of the Asia-Pacific to reaffirm U.S. engagement there. The trip, Clinton’s sixth to the region since taking office, included stops in Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, China, New Zealand and energy-rich Papua New Guinea.

Obama is currently visiting India, the first stop on a four-country, 10-day tour in Asia.

In New Hampshire, for instance, seniors backed GOP Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte over her Democratic challenger by 33 points. In the narrow Illinois Senate contest, Republican Mark Kirk won older voters by 22 points. And In Delaware, they were the only age group to back tea party favorite Christine O’Donnell, by an 11-point margin.

“I’ve been saying since August 2009, that there was a tsunami — in this case a senior citizen tsunami — headed towards Capitol Hill,” said Jim Martin, chairman of the 60 Plus Association, a conservative campaign group targeted toward older voters. “That tsunami came ashore.”

The shift in older voters was the most dramatic swing of any age group, George Mason political scientist Michael McDonald said, and it gave the GOP the “magnitude” of its victory.

In the 2006 midterm campaign (regarded as a more useful basis of comparison than high-turnout presidential elections), voters 65 and older essentially split their vote evenly between Republicans and Democrats — a stark comparison with 2010. But that’s not the only noticeable change in voting patterns: In this cycle, in addition to losing the senior vote by more than 20 points, older voters also grew as a share of the overall electorate. In 2006, seniors made up 19 percent of the voting public; this year, they represented 23 percent.

I doubt Obama would be accepted by the locals in any political position in Chicago. He could try for something in the Postal Dept. but then he would have to take a Civil Service exam and produce a valid birth certificate.. so that employment possibility is not an option.

Jan H, I think Hillary was talking about herself as the person who has great ideas, get can’t get elected and the Boob when she says all personality and no ideas…that was apparent to me. She could have gotten elected had she not been cheated, but now I see no avenue for her candidacy. Rubio will win and take the hispanic vote and if he choses a black running mate, there’s no chance Hillary will win. People still want the American Idol and they don’t care about experience. I think the election has made her chances null.

Oh this will put the cat amongst the pigeons, spanner in the works for Rahm

African-American group backs Danny Davis for mayor (OF CHICAGO)

After two months of closed-door meetings, a coalition of African-American leaders has settled on U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., as its “consensus candidate” for Chicago mayor.

It was a late turnaround for the veteran congressman, who was not among the two finalists the Chicago Coalition for Mayor said they were considering endorsing a week ago to succeed Mayor Richard Daley.

The Otrauma trip to India is costing millions and ruining the prestige and respect of so many world leaders.He is a “Loose Canon” on our ship of statePerhaps a waste management company will offer him a job as we “DRAFT HILLARY” and “GIVE BO and MO the BOOT.”

By ABM92 Mark my word. She will run again when she and Bill are ready.

lorac, on the memeorandum site, there is nothing on the India trip right now and the only previous articles I have seen there were the UK papers and a couple of Indian outlets. Is the WH press corp(se?) alive and well?

COULD Abraham Lincoln have been elected president in the 21st century, Hillary Rodham Clinton wondered aloud?

”You know,” she said. ”He was awkward and gawky looking. He was so tall. He had what were called in those days ’bouts of melancholia’, which we might call depression.

”Could he have withstood not just the 24/7 news coverage, but everybody being their own reporter with a cellphone? You know, I don’t know.”

Advertisement: Story continues below A better question, perhaps, might be whether an Abraham Lincoln would want to run for president these days, or even US Secretary of State, like Hillary Clinton.

Why, Mrs Clinton said, she had a whole outfit in the State Department ”devoted to what we call 21st century state craft or 21st century diplomacy”, employing Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Facebook and all the other manifestations that would puzzle old Abe.

Mrs Clinton the 24/7 politician was a constantly moving figure in a tangerine pantsuit surrounded by squadrons of men in dark suits as she tackled what Prime Minister Julia Gillard had promised would be a ”fun” day in Melbourne yesterday.

Mrs Clinton was, of course, neither awkward nor gawky looking. Not tall, either. But certainly, she was a politician of the new century, where fun boiled down to a short walk along the Yarra beside Federation Square – the crowds kept at bay by those men in black – and lunch with Ms Gillard at Taxi Dining Room.

She swept from a breakfast among power women to an ABC-hosted forum at Melbourne University and on to Pixel House, billed as the world’s first carbon-neutral office building, where she conceded that America still had big challenges with climate change since the Republican rout had left President Barack Obama without a policy. Soon she was off to the Port of Melbourne where she extolled shipments of American tractors, giant mining tip-trucks and Harley-Davidson motorcycles as symbols of trade ties, and on again to the Shrine of Remembrance to place a wreath.

There was scarcely the chance to draw breath and when Mrs Clinton did so, it was simply to reload for another speech.

All those words.

It took Abe Lincoln just 267 words to deliver the Gettysburg Address – his greatest speech, and the most famous in US history.

It took Mrs Clinton 418 words to answer the simple question posed by a member of the audience at the forum: ”Do you think politics has moved beyond a contest of ideas to a straight popularity contest?”

She made clear that 21st century leaders needed to combine the attributes of silver-tongued visionary and hard-charging chief executive.

”We have a very famous saying from one of our well-known political leaders in America, former governor of New York Mario Cuomo, who says that you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose,” Mrs Clinton said.

”So, you get out there and you don’t know what you’re doing, but you’ve got a great way to get people to vote for you and then you wake up the day after and you say, ‘Oh my goodness, now what?’ It’s like the dog catching the car. You have to get to work and actually implement a policy. So we need in today’s very media-centric world people who can do both.”

Poetry and prose. Listen to someone like Hillary Clinton for awhile and you are set to wondering why Australian politicians lack both.

Mrs Clinton speaks in whole sentences, her many ever-evolving ideas clear as a bell, and conveys an easy folksiness. She spoke of Australia and the US being created by immigrants and dreamers, but noted a difference: ”I’ve never understood why you would ruin a perfectly good slice of bread with Vegemite.”

She cut right to the chase when Natalie Hutchins – married to NSW Senator Steve Hutchins and running for the Victorian state seat of Keilor – asked for ”a little bit of advice about how to balance a successful political career and a happy marriage”.

”Well, you’re both going to be serving at the same time, is that right if you’re elected?” Ms Clinton inquired. ”Yes,” said Ms Hutchins.

”Well,” said Mrs Clinton, possibly recalling her own arrangements with former president Bill Clinton, ”that’s going to be interesting at home.”

Foreign Minister and former PM Kevin Rudd, whose own early attempts at folksiness eventually fell flat, appeared enraptured as Mrs Clinton wove her spell over the crowd at the university.

Perhaps it was because on Saturday, the Secretary of State had called him ”Mr Prime Minister”. He didn’t correct her.

Hillary Clinton would trounce fellow Democrat President Barack Obama by a 20-percentage-point margin in a head-to-head race for the presidency, according to a Newsmax/SurveyUSA poll conducted after Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Newsmax has conducted the survey to find out how several well-known political and celebrity figures, ranging from Clinton, Sarah Palin and Bill Gates to Warren Buffett, Donald Trump and Glenn Beck, would fare if they ran against Obama for the White House.

The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted Nov. 3-4, after Republicans won the House and gained six seats in the Senate — results widely interpreted as a rejection of Obama and raising questions about whom the Democrats might field as a candidate in 2012.

In the poll, respondents were asked: “If there were an election for president of the United States today, and the only two names on the ballot were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who would you vote for?”

The poll found that overall, 60 percent of respondents chose Secretary of State Clinton, while 40 percent chose Obama.

There was virtually no difference between male and female respondents in the poll — 60 percent of women and 59 percent of men chose Clinton over Obama.

Older voters were more likely to vote for Clinton — 67 percent of respondents aged 65 and older and 60 percent of those aged 50 to 64 chose Clinton. But even among the youngest age group that was considered solid Obama territory, 18- to 34-year-olds, a majority of 54 percent opted for Clinton.

Clinton has said in recent interviews that she has no plans to run for president again and seemingly ruled out such a bid until 2016. But there has been talk — fueled partly by her fellow Democrats’ losses in the midterm elections — that she might embark on a new race, and the Newsmax poll suggests she could pose a serious challenge to Obama in 2012.

“These numbers underscore President Obama’s challenges going forward as he faces the final two years of his term and begins gearing up for his re-election effort,” Democratic pollster and Fox News commentator Doug Schoen told Newsmax.

“The re-election prospects of President Obama have only been made more difficult by the Democrats’ drubbing in this week’s midterm elections.”

Not all potential Democratic presidential candidates fared as well against Obama in the Newsmax poll, however.

Retiring Sen. Even Bayh of Indiana has stockpiled more than $10 million in campaign cash he could use to challenge Obama for the nomination in 2012.

But in the Newsmax survey, Obama outpolled Bayh by a margin of 59 percent to 41 percent.

Newsmax will reveal other results of hypothetical races between Obama and other famous Americans in the coming days.

SurveyUSA is an independent research company that conducts public opinion polls for media and academic institutions, and conducts private market research for commercial clients and non-profit organizations.

“[…] but now I see no avenue for her candidacy. Rubio will win and take the hispanic vote and if he choses a black running mate, there’s no chance Hillary will win.”

I don’t think it’s a given that Hispanics will vote for Rubio, given that Hispanics/Latinos of non-Cuban dissent are much more liberal. Clintons have a connection and history with Hispanics; her support was in the mid to high 60s in 2008. I think those who supported her then will gladly support her again if she decides to run.

Jan H,
Yes, I was talking about the video…I think Hillary is getting a little fed up with Obama’s stupid inaction and stupid policies. It has to be exasperating for her and Bill to have the knowledge and the wherewithall to fix our economy and are unable to because of politics.

trixta, We didn’t think the blacks would leave the Clinton’s either, but they did because Obama knew how to get them…he put the old Okie Dokie on them and the fell for it. I’m sure Rubio would use the same method….it worked beautiful for Obama. Those freaking tree hugging liberalards are the ones who screw everything up. Those upity, educated white professor types that are full of sheit!
Excuse the typos…I just got off a 32 hour straight shift.

Obama is going to mention Pakistan in his speech to the Parliament, Indian media is reporting. I don’t think anything less than calling Pakistan to abandon terrorism completely against India will be acceptable to the Indians. If he lectures them, they will not like it, especially now that Pakistani ISI and Headley connection has been firmly established for the 26/11 terrorist attack on Mumbai.

trixta: “Clintons have a connection and history with Hispanics; her support was in the mid to high 60s in 2008. I think those who supported her then will gladly support her again if she decides to run.”

The Clintons have also had a connection and history with blacks, with high support – and they willingly believed BO’s lies about them. Of course, perhaps the hispanics won’t race bait as BO’s people did.

ABC News has learned that because of the dangerous clouds of ash spewing from an Indonesian volcano, 48 hours before Air Force One is due to touch down in the capital Jakarta White House officials are concerned President Obama may not be able to make the trip
————————
And let down his legion of admirers? Perish the thought. Lest we forge, he is the Monarch of the sea. And who’afraid of a little volcanic ash”

I am the monarch of the Sea
The Ruler of the Queen’s Navee (snip)
BUT WHEN IT STARTS TO BLOW
I GENERALLY GO BELOW
AND SEEK THE SECLUSION THAT A CABIN GRANTS
And so do his his sisters and his cousins and his aunts

Yeah. President Obama is already trying to balance on a very thin edge. His confidence is shattered. His lack of experience fully realized. Staff have abandoned him – or were forced out. Some in the media are actually starting to question him. The big money donors for the party are starting to reconsider their investment. The American voters rejected his agenda by historical proportions. Nancy Pelosi continues to pose a threat both as a national figure that the vast majority of Americans despise, as well as for what she knows regarding certain White House dealings…and now a Congress with the authority to demand answers? To hold investigations? Does anyone really think this president has the strength to endure this kind of political environment?

New pictures from Delhi (At Rajghat where Gandhi is memorialized — my dad broke down when he visited this place. I hate how Obama tries to get mileage out of this fake Gandhi thing he does especially with the young and gullible).

Order now and get your PROUD TO BE AMERICAN CHIA for only $19.95 and just $7.95 S&H. Your package will include your choice of Chia Washington, Lincoln, Obama or Liberty Pose Handmade Planter, with the convenient drip tray, Chia seed packet and instructions. And when you order more than one PROUD TO BE AMERICAN CHIA we’ll waive the shipping and handling on your entire order. [Also available at KMart, etc.]https://www.americanchia.com/flare/next

Hows that Bipartisan thing going then after the midterms…….Obama couldnt help himself and it only took 6 days

Obama blames lack of Republican cooperation for failure of his healthcare bill

Barack Obama blames the lack of Republican cooperation for the failure of his healthcare bill, according to comments he made on last night’s “60 Minutes” TV program. Sitting down with Steve Kroft two days after his self-described “shellacking” this past Tuesday, Obama attempted to make it appear as if he sort of, kind of understood what the American people were plainly communicating to him when they fired a whole heck of a lot of Democrats in the midterms. However, Obama’s insistence to still shift the blame to the Republicans even now, when it should be 100% clear to him that it was his fault and his party’s fault for pushing through a hugely unpopular bill, verifies that he still has not learned anything from the midterm “shellacking.” After all, what’s so hard in finally confessing that his obstinate, ideological and arrogant refusal to listen to the majority of the US is what caused his healthcare bill to go down in flames?

President Obama isolated ahead of 2012 (and this is from Politico even I’m shocked, its clear the Dem party is fracturing into factions and this going to explode)

President Barack Obama has performed his act of contrition. Now comes the hard part, according to Democrats around the country: reckoning with the simple fact that he’s isolated himself from virtually every group that matters in American politics.

Congressional Democrats consider him distant and blame him for their historic defeat on Tuesday. Democratic state party leaders scoff at what they see as an inattentive and hapless political operation. Democratic lobbyists feel maligned by his holier-than-though take on their profession. His own cabinet – with only a few exceptions – has been marginalized.

His relations with business leaders could hardly be worse. Obama has suggested it’s a PR problem but several Democratic officials said CEOs friendly with the president walk away feeling he’s indifferent at best to their concerns. Add in his icy relations with Republicans, the media and, most importantly, most voters and it’s easy to understand why his own staff leaked word to POLITICO that they want Obama to shake up his staff and change his political approach.

It should be a no-brainer for a humbled Obama to move quickly after Tuesday’s thumping to try to repair these damaged relations, and indeed, in India Sunday, he acknowledged the need for “midcourse corrections.”

But many Democrats privately say they are skeptical that Obama is self-aware enough to make the sort of dramatic changes they feel are needed – in his relations with other Democrats or in his very approach to the job.

In his effort to change Washington, Obama has failed to engage Washington and its institutions and customs, leaving him estranged from the capital’s permanent power structure – right at the moment when Democrats say he must rethink his strategy for cultivating and nurturing relations with key constituencies ahead of 2012.

“This guy swept to power on a wave of adulation, and he learned the wrong lessons from that,” said a Democratic official who deals frequently with the White House. “He’s more of a movement leader than a politician. He needs someone to kick his ass on things large and small, and teach him to be a politician.”

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) expressed a much deeper frustration to POLITICO: that the president never had House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s back – and it cost both of them. “They not only failed to defend her and her accomplishments on their behalf,” said Miller of the White House, “they failed to defend themselves.”

Tuesday’s losses have left high-level Democrats feeling freer to open up about White House missteps over the past two years – complaints that were repressed when Obama was strong, but now are being aired as clues to his team’s isolation as he tries to regain command of the capital after his midterm thrashing.

Consider state party leaders. Many feel slighted by a president they helped elect. The slights are both big and small. In July, Obama was visiting GM and Chrysler plans in the Detroit area and invited the local House member – but other Democratic lawmakers who stood to benefit from the exposure were left in the cold.

Mop, We can only hope he will quit…but he is being wined and dined at all his visits and his head will grow while he is gone. I was surprised that Geithner was with him in India. I wonder who else was there. They said 10 Americans and I thought they said they were bringing the girls, I haven’t seen them.

Are we suppose to believe the ones being put together in India will only be for the Indian market??? It might be at first, but I bet sooner or later the asembly will be totally in India.

Harley-Davidson to build bikes in India

The iconic American motorcycle brand, Harley-Davidson, has announced plans to build an assembly plant in India.Harley-Davidson, the iconic American motorcycle brand with a cult-like following, has announced it has chosen to build its second assembly plant ever outside the United States in India.

The “complete knock down” plant or CKD is expected to be up and running in the northern Indian state of Haryana in first half of 2011. Parts made in America will be put together for the Indian market in Haryana.

“What we are doing is made in USA, assembled in India, which will have a positive job effect back home which is why we are driving this investment as quickly as we are,” Anoop Prakash managing director for Harley Davidson India told CNN.

Clinton back on US soil after marathon Asia tour
AP – U.S Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton smiles during a press conference after the annual Australia-U.S. … By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Matthew Lee, Associated Press – Mon Nov 8, 6:09 am ET
PAGO PAGO, American Samoa – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton returned to American soil on Monday after a marathon two-week trip to the Asia-Pacific during which the domestic U.S. political landscape dramatically changed amid growing international concerns about China becoming more aggressive.

Clinton touched down in American Samoa on her way back to Washington, where Republican gains in Congress in last week’s midterm elections may complicate some key Obama administration foreign policy priorities. She said protecting American interests abroad should not be a partisan matter and has vowed to work with the new Republican leadership.

But some GOP lawmakers are threatening deep cuts in foreign affairs funding and it’s unclear if heavy lobbying from the administration will convince the lame-duck Senate to ratify a major arms reduction treaty with Russia. Others have questioned the administration’s strategy in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Despite those differences, the new Congress and the administration are likely to see eye-to-eye on the main purpose for Clinton’s lengthy tour: checking the influence of a rising China that has become increasingly assertive as it economic might grows.

Beginning Oct. 27, Clinton visited Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia to cement ties with China’s wary neighbors, assure them of America’s commitment to remaining a dominant Asia-Pacific power and press Chinese officials to play a more responsible and predictable role on the regional and world stage.

“We’ve been here, we are here and we will be here,” she said Monday in Australia, referring to America’s military, diplomatic and commercial presence in the region.

“As China becomes more of a player in regional and global affairs, then we expect that China will be a responsible player and will participate in the international framework of rules that govern the way nations behave and conduct themselves,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s longest trip abroad as secretary of state took her from Cambodia’s 12th-century Angkor Wat temple complex to 21st-century environmental innovations in Australia, with stops at a base for Antarctic research in New Zealand and a mangrove forest in Papua New Guinea.

She started the journey in Hawaii, where she and Japan’s foreign minister called on Beijing to clarify its position of the export of rare earth minerals that are vital to the global high-tech industry and to work with Tokyo on resolving competing claims to territory in the East China Sea that have ratcheted up tensions.

Two days later, in talks in Vietnam and then on China’s Hainan Island, Clinton won assurances from top Chinese officials that they would remain a reliable supplier of the precious metals. But she was unable to interest them in an offer to host talks with Japan over the island dispute.

China rejected the proposal and has reacted angrily to U.S. declarations that resolution of such disputes is an American national security concern. The rejection prompted Clinton to renew the offer and restate the U.S. interest in ensuring freedom of navigation and maritime safety in the region.

And she made clear that despite China’s assurances on rare earth exports, the international community must diversify its sources for the material. China now supplies 97 percent of the world’s rare earth production and continuing to depend on it would be a strategic mistake, Clinton said.

In Cambodia, which is heavily dependent on Chinese investment and trade, Clinton warned against the dangers of over-reliance on any one nation or partner.

That theme was also evident in Malaysia and in New Zealand, where she signed a declaration aimed at fully restoring military ties and bringing a final end to a lingering nuclear dispute that had dogged relations for 25 years.

At her last stop in Melbourne, Australia, she and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, along with their Australian colleagues, agreed to step up military and defense cooperation with the clear goal of expanding the projection of U.S. power in the Asia-Pacific.

In a joint statement, the two nations “affirmed the need for peaceful resolution of regional maritime territorial disputes, including in the South China Sea and the East China Sea. They supported negotiation of a more formal, binding code of conduct for the South China Sea.”

Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Tim Scott of South Carolina, who won endorsements by Sarah Palin and support from tea party activists, are part of a newly named 22-member team charged with crafting new rules and smoothing the GOP’s shift from minority to majority.

The team, led by Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon and headquartered in the basement of the Capitol, is to meet Monday night and Tuesday. It includes several seasoned veterans and influential members like 15-term Rep. David Dreier of California, in line for his second stint as head of the powerful Rules Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, in line to head the Budget Committee, and Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, the GOP campaign committee chief.

Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington, one of a large crop of GOP lawmakers who came to Congress 16 years ago, the last time Republicans seized control of the House, is part of the group.

Two other freshmen, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Martha Roby of Alabama, are also on the roster.

FOX has obtained a letter being penned by defeated House Democrats that implores House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to step aside.

The letter is now circulating Capitol Hill and has not yet been sent to the Speaker. FOX has obtained draft language of the letter.

In the draft of the letter, the members say that they were “victimized by a national wave of resentment toward Democrats, a wave that ensnared you along with us.”

The letter goes on to say “Madam Speaker, fairly or unfairly, Republicans made you the face of the resentment and disagreement in our races. While we commend your years of service to our party and your leadership through many tough times, we respectfully ask that you step aside as the top Democrat in the House.”

The letter says that the defeated members “fear that Republicans will further demonize you, and in so doing, they will scare potential candidates out. The prospect of having to run against their own party leadership, in addition to their Republican opponent is simply too daunting.”

The lawmakers also say that “one mark of a strong leader is the ability to discern when it is time to pass the baton” and calls this a “dark hour.”

Republicans are “making some big promises to try to lure West Virginia Senator-elect Joe Manchin to cross the aisle,” Fox News reports.

Aside from his pick of committee assignments (likely the Energy and Natural Resources Committee), Manchin might get support for one of his pet projects – a plant to convert coal to diesel fuel that has stalled under Democratic leadership in Washington.

It’s one of Manchin’s pet projects and could mean big money for the state’s coal producers.

“Republicans believe in an ‘all of the above’ approach to energy,” one top Senate aide told Power Play. “And coal-to-diesel could certainly be part of that.”

Manchin’s switch could mean Republican support for not just $1 billion in seed money for the project but also a deal, much sought in coal country, to require the armed forces to use converted coal for fuel.

Republicans believe Manchin is particularly susceptible to the overture because he is up for reelection in 2012 and will have to be on the ticket with President Obama, who is direly unpopular in West Virginia.

Thoughts from the Manchin camp:

But Team Manchin, so far, is sticking with the campaign line that the two-term conservative governor is heading to Washington to change the way his party operates and to look for chances to work on bipartisan projects.

“He was elected as a Democrat and he has to go to Washington as a Democrat to try, in good faith, to make the changes in the party he campaigned on,” said one Manchin advisor. “Now, if that doesn’t work and Democrats aren’t receptive, I don’t know what possibilities that leaves open.”

Joe Lieberman has apparently the lowest approval rating of any senator up for re-election in 2012 which means if he decides to run independent, he could split the Dem vote and hand the seat to a republican.

My bet is Obama tries to buy him off next year with a administration job to free the seat up?

Jan H,
Yes she is and I think she even has appointments today. I think she got back at 6 am.
Geez, I worked 32 hours straight over the weekend and I’m exhausted and don’t have to work today…I don’t know how she does it!

“NIGHTLINE’S” CYNTHIA MCFADDEN INTERVIEWS SEC. OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON AND SEC. OF DEFENSE ROBERT GATES FROM AUSTRALIA

November 08, 2010

INTERVIEW TO AIR ON “NIGHTLINE” TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9

PORTIONS OF INTERVIEW TO AIR TUESDAY ON “GOOD MORNING AMERICA”

AND “WORLD NEWS”

In their first ever joint television interview while traveling abroad, ABC News “Nightline” anchor Cynthia McFadden joins Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Melbourne, Australia, as they meet with their Australian counterparts. In addition to exclusive access to Clinton and Gates while traveling to and from Melbourne and throughout their time there, Ms. McFadden also sits down for a wide-ranging interview to discuss the results of the midterm elections, American policy in Afghanistan, and the recent attempted terror attack from Yemen, among other topics.

Cynthia McFadden’s interview with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will air on ABC News “Nightline” Tuesday, November 9 at 11:35pm (ET/PT). A portion of the interview will also air on Tuesday’s “Good Morning America” and “World News with Diane Sawyer.”

Well Lamecherry is a MUST read today….he’s pist at GWB over Palin. I had no idea that Lamecherry was a Palinite. There is a huge war going on in the repub party over Palin.
All this fighting going on is just surreal.

Norma Desmond,
hmmmm, hmmmm! Well who knows what will happen after the first of the year! I imagine the jockeying is already happening. I just want a good candidate that does not want to decimate the middle class.

There is a huge war going on in the repub party over Palin.
All this fighting going on is just surreal.

———-
Oh my, what a shock. The good ol’ boyz in the Rethug party are pist at having to deal with the woman that doesn’t iron their shirts, STFU and wait in line like a good little girl. Palin should just do what they say and not try to steal their thunder.

Sounds pretty much the same as what the Obamacrats did to Hillary, before they actually stole the primary from her, and used her back as target practice.

I am thinking about starting a campaign to support Pelosi’s bid to become minority leader. After what she did to the party while she was speaker and how she managed to alienate the American People, it may be in the national interest to see the good old death mask with that macabre grin dispensing more of the leadership she is famous for. Bolsheviks.

shadowfax, They are doing exactly the same thing to Sarah. I am sick of these old birds deciding who we get. Lamecherry blames GWB for Obama…that is what I find interesting about his blogpost. He is also threatening GWB and Rove which I also found interesting. Apparently he likes the “young guns” too. I know that is what they said about Obama vs. Hillary, but these guys have been around for a while…they have been in the U.S. Senate for several rounds, they are not newbies like Odumbo was.
I really, really want Hillary for Potus, but how to get her there is a huge problem. Sad!

The Boyz over at Hillbuzz are trying to get Pelosi out, so I’m going to go with them this time. Pelosi will just screw things up worse and the country is on the edge. Someone needs to get to work and quit playing around or we’ll all have to learn chinese.

Norma Desmond,
Perhaps Mr. Trapper should consult with Mrs. Obama because she also says he’s Kenyan. The lying press, lets vote them out. I see that the big Olberman is back on TV. Geez, I thought we’d gotten rid of one of the Obama bot press corp.

Hillary Clinton would trounce fellow Democrat President Barack Obama by a 20-percentage-point margin in a head-to-head race for the presidency, according to a Newsmax/SurveyUSA poll conducted after Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Newsmax conducted the survey to find out how several well-known political and celebrity figures, ranging from Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Bill Gates to Warren Buffett, Donald Trump, and Glenn Beck, would fare if they ran against Obama for the White House.

The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted Nov. 3-4, after Republicans won the House and gained six seats in the Senate – results widely interpreted as a rejection of Obama and raising questions about whom the Democrats might field as a candidate in 2012.

In the poll, respondents were asked: “If there were an election for president of the United States today, and the only two names on the ballot were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, whom would you vote for?”

The poll found that, overall, 60 percent of respondents chose Secretary of State Clinton, while 40 percent chose Obama.

Hillary Clinton would trounce fellow Democrat President Barack Obama by a 20-percentage-point margin in a head-to-head race for the presidency, according to a Newsmax/SurveyUSA poll conducted after Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Obviously the president is not a Kenyan. One supposes Mr. Kansagra meant “of Kenyan ancestry” or something.

– Jake Tapper
—————-
Tapper says it is “obvious” that Obama is not a Kenyan. Obvious? To whom? To Tapper? Really? Has he seen with his own two eyes the certificate of live birth? No. Then all he has to go on is hearsay. Right? Moreover, does he realize that there is contrary evidence? Indeed, the former head of the responsible agency in Hawaii says it is an open secret in the Hawaiian government that Obama was not born there. Has Tapper interviewed him? No. Then the only plausible conclusion is that Tapper is a shallow, incurious partisan journalist, eager to spout the party line. And that I am afraid is the only thing here that is “obvious”. Let me give you a parallel situation. When Bush was running for president, a friend of mine who was the former mayor of Juneau told me that the then Democratic Mayor of Wasilla went to the Republican Leaders of Alaska, told them how W had stayed at her house for weeks while he was in Alaska how he would play hookey from work and plant himself in front of the television in sweat gear and watch cartoons. She told them outright that these were not the kind of qualities that would be useful to a president. They told her to shut the fuck up because good old W would be good for Alaska. By the same token as Obama is good for the State of Hawaii, ABC and Tapper. The fact that he is terrible for the country does not even enter their thinking. And that is why you have a Tea Party movement–somebody has to look out for the American People, most of whom never realize the game that is being played on them by the elites. Trust me. Obama was not born in Hawaii, any more than W was a great president.

Full text of the letter below. Unclear who exactly will sign it and when it will go to the Speaker.

Letter from Defeated Members:

Many of us want the chance to run again and reclaim the seats that we lost on Tuesday. With you as the leader of House Democrats, the hangover of 2010 stands no chance of subsiding. Many of us have run our last race but remain committed to our party; we want to help recruit successful candidates to run in our stead. Unfortunately, we fear that Republicans will further demonize you, and in so doing they will scare potential candidates out. The prospect of having to run against their own party leadership in addition to their Republican opponent is simply too daunting.

This is a difficult letter to write, because we admire your commitment, your drive, and your conviction. You have been an historic figure in our great nation, and for that we are all proud, as should you be. Nonetheless, we each experienced how Republican demonization of you and your leadership contributed to our defeat.

It is impossible not to judge the results of November 2nd as anything but a profound loss. We want to recover. Recovery of our majority in the House necessitates new leadership at the top of our party. We believe that you can and will play an extraordinary role in our party, and it is extremely unfortunate that Republicans have taken away your ability to lead as effectively as you are able. Nonetheless, one mark of a strong leader is the ability to discern when it is time to pass the baton. As defeated members, whose party needs to rebuild, we are counting on you to show the strength of your leadership in this dark hour. We ask that you step aside as leader of our party in the House.

AS a schoolboy in Jakarta, Barack Obama attended Muslim prayer sessions with his classmates against the wishes of his mother.

The US President’s former grade three teacher said that Mr Obama – who was known as “Barry” when he attended the Menteng One school in Jakarta – studied the Koran and went to classes on Islam, despite the objections of Ann Dunham, a Catholic.

The teacher’s recollections will add to speculation about Mr Obama’s links to Islam during his much-anticipated visit to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, as part of his ten-day tour of Asia.

If Ms. Pelosi had been a more persuasive communicator, she could have batted away the ludicrous caricature of her painted by Republicans across the country as some kind of fur-hatted commissar jamming her diktats down the public’s throat. Both Ms. Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, are inside players who seem to visibly shrink on camera when defending their policies, rarely connecting with the skeptical independent voters who raged so loudly on Tuesday.

With President Obama proving to be a surprisingly diffident salesman of his own work, Congressional Democrats need a new champion to stand against a tightly disciplined Republican insurgency.

President Barack Obama has performed his act of contrition. Now comes the hard part, according to Democrats around the country: reckoning with the simple fact that he’s isolated himself from virtually every group that matters in American politics.

Congressional Democrats consider him distant and blame him for their historic defeat on Tuesday. Democratic state party leaders scoff at what they see as an inattentive and hapless political operation. Democratic lobbyists feel maligned by his holier-than-thou take on their profession. His own Cabinet — with only a few exceptions — has been marginalized.

His relations with business leaders could hardly be worse. Obama has suggested it’s a PR problem, but several Democratic officials said CEOs friendly with the president walk away feeling he’s indifferent at best to their concerns. Add in his icy relations with Republicans, the media and, most important, most voters, and it’s easy to understand why his own staff leaked word to POLITICO that it wants Obama to shake up his staff and change his political approach.

It should be a no-brainer for a humbled Obama to move quickly after Tuesday’s thumping to try to repair these damaged relations, and indeed, in India on Sunday, he acknowledged the need for “midcourse corrections.”

But many Democrats privately say they are skeptical that Obama is self-aware enough to make the sort of dramatic changes they feel are needed — in his relations with other Democrats or in his very approach to the job.

In his effort to change Washington, Obama has failed to engage Washington and its institutions and customs, leaving him estranged from the capital’s permanent power structure — right at the moment when Democrats say he must rethink his strategy for cultivating and nurturing relations with key constituencies ahead of 2012.

“This guy swept to power on a wave of adulation, and he learned the wrong lessons from that,” said a Democratic official who deals frequently with the White House. “He’s more of a movement leader than a politician. He needs someone to kick his ass on things large and small and teach him to be a politician.”

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) expressed a much deeper frustration to POLITICO: that the president never had House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s back — and it cost both of them. “They not only failed to defend her and her accomplishments on their behalf,” said Miller of the White House, “they failed to defend themselves.”

Tuesday’s losses have left high-level Democrats feeling freer to open up about White House missteps over the past two years — complaints that were repressed when Obama was strong but now are being aired as clues to his team’s isolation as he tries to regain command of the capital after his midterm thrashing.

So this thing – this “scandal”, might not actually reach the president? I think it will, and so do others aware of the general situation, but a White House affords a lot of protection. The Obama White House is currently utilizing all of those protective powers at the moment – that is what signaled to me that this was legit. That is when I realized this scandal was really out there and gathering momentum. When certain figures in an administration go into action…the campaign to protect the president from the situation becomes known.

So the Republicans are aware of the situation? Oh yeah. At least certain members are, and likely some who have very specific details. It is no casual thing to have incoming members of a new Republican House majority telling the media that the White House needs to make certain it doesn’t start shredding documents…well, that’s about as bold a declaration as one makes in this town. Those Republicans are making it clear to the Obama White House that they know something – and are willing to go after them over it. I just don’t think President Obama fully understands or appreciates what is going to be coming at him in 2011. The scrutiny and the power that a Republican Congress now holds over him is going to be immense. I’m not exaggerating when I say it might very well break this president.

Break the president? Yeah. President Obama is already trying to balance on a very thin edge. His confidence is shattered. His lack of experience fully realized. Staff have abandoned him – or were forced out. Some in the media are actually starting to question him. The big money donors for the party are starting to reconsider their investment. The American voters rejected his agenda by historical proportions. Nancy Pelosi continues to pose a threat both as a national figure that the vast majority of Americans despise, as well as for what she knows regarding certain White House dealings…and now a Congress with the authority to demand answers? To hold investigations? Does anyone really think this president has the strength to endure this kind of political environment?

Shadowfax,
Well we knew all this already! I really would like to know more about this scandal….its sounding more like the “whitey tape”, we all waited for.’

I do know that Obama is totally nutz so this part I believe. I bet those blue dogs are totally pist off. Feingold, how long has he been in office??? I hope they can get Pooplosi out of there. I think her and Obama are cut off the same narcissist tree. Neither seem to know when they are toast!

I think Pelosi would prefer to leave the scene of the crime, than endure the death of a thousand cuts.

1. Ok…so do you think the president is going to pull a Clinton and veer back to the middle of the political road? (shakes head) I have said it many times – Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton. He doesn’t have Clinton’s intellect, Clinton’s political know-how, or Clinton’s common sense. Barack Obama is too self involved, too bored of details, too lazy. But even more important, Barack Obama doesn’t have the people around him who will allow a turn toward the political middle. Many of the moderates in the Democratic Party were taken out with this election. What is left are the far left people – the -expletive- “Progressives” if you will. They are still in denial. Never before has such a group of like minded dumb -expletives- inhabited the halls of the United States government.

2.Pelosi is holding that over people? – that if they don’t support her as Minority Leader she is going to quit Congress??? Yeah – that is exactly what she is doing. And that is where the real pathetic part comes in…she refuses to accept the fact that she is not very well liked by members of her own party, to say nothing of course by the White House. If the Democrats actually make Pelosi the Minority Leader I will be totally stunned. It would be a mistake of monumental proportions. That’s exactly why Republican operatives are actually pushing to make it happen now. It would be a boon to the Republicans. And if I were on their side I would be doing the exact same thing

Shadowfax,
I had to get the 250 channel package to get it. Here in my area it will be on 186. If you get Fox Business Network, then it should be there. I been watching the commercials on that channel about it and it looks soooo interesting. I can’t wait!

As a bonus, look at the first comment, a scathing parody (a letter from B. Hussein Obama).

spectator.org/archives/2010/11/08/its-maureen-in-america-again

It’s Maureen in America Again
By Ralph R. Reiland on 11.8.10 @ 6:06AM

Especially after bad days, liberals like to go to columnists like Maureen Dowd at the New York Times for some reassurance that everything’s fine with liberalism and it’s just the rest of us who are a bad mix of weird, greedy, ethnocentric, dumb and scary.

Like a lighthouse in a storm, Dowd unfailingly guides lost-at-sea liberals back to the safe port of bigger government, political sneering, higher taxation, centralized planning and economic envy.

Here was Ms. Dowd’s instant analysis on the morning after the nation’s voters delivered a stunning and nationwide defeat to Democrats: “Even though it was predicted, it was still a shock to see voters humiliate a brilliant and spellbinding young president, who’d had such a Kennedy-like beginning.”

It’s more accurate to report that the “spellbinding” phase ended about two years ago when all the balloons and canned stadium speeches were put away and the real job of governing had to begin. Clearly, the thrill is long gone.

Regarding the “brilliant” part, Dowd failed to acknowledge that President Obama was far from brilliant in putting the jobs issue, the top concern for voters, on the back burner while he wasted two years trying to ram an unpopular health reform bill through Congress.

Ms. Dowd is arguing that Obama remains as brilliant and spellbinding as ever and the people are just too dim-witted and propagandized to recognize it.

“Republicans,” she asserted, “outcommunicated a silver-tongued president who was supposed to be Ronald Reagan’s heir in the communication department.”

First, Obama is declared “Kennedy-like,” and then Reaganesque. Simply the best, doubled!

In fact, President Obama delivered dozens of major speeches to promote the Democrats’ version of health reform. His problem was that the more he talked the more the public turned against what he was saying — the opposite of the impact President Reagan generally produced when he argued a position.

Rather than a matter of communication or being “outcommunicated,” Obama failed because he and his Congressional allies were trying to sell a bad product.

The nation’s nasty Republicans and conservatives, concluded Dowd, were “able to persuade a lot of Americans that the couple in the White House was not American enough, not quite ‘normal,’ too radical, too Great Society.” Further, they were able to persuade a lot of Americans that both Obamas were given a strong overdose of arrogance and self-importance in college, that all their “Ivy League schooling had made them think they knew better than the average American folks, not to mention the Founding Fathers.”

Dowd got it right about the perception of Ivy League superiority and haughtiness. That seems to be the natural reaction to what Michelle Obama declared in 2008 — “Let me tell you something — for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.”

A long-running lack of pride in America is simply not something that’s felt by non-Harvard “average American folks.”

Barack Obama, similarly, when asked while attending a European summit in 2009 if he believed in American exceptionalism, replied, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that Brits believe in British exceptionalism and Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” As Michael Barone put it, “In other words, not at all.”

Ms. Dowd’s description on the morning after of the previous night’s political winners? Simply “a lot of conservative nuts.” Quite a catty, bitter and erroneous depiction of events by a top columnist at the so-called “paper-of-record.”

I’m more positive about President Obama getting his wings clipped. I think it’s healthy for people to increase their skepticism about someone who declared, speaking of himself, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the United States House of Representatives requests the pleasure of your company at a reception honoring the Accomplishments of the 111th Congress on Wednesday, the tenth day of November, two thousand ten at three thirty in the afternoon Cannon Caucus Room 345 Cannon House Office Building

“The museum has over 20,000 exhibits reflecting Indian crafts traditions and seven galleries spaces for display.”

New Delhi, Nov 8 – Indian textiles and handicrafts charmed their way into Michelle Obama’s shopping bag Monday as the US first lady almost ran out of money, picking up bedspreads, Ganeshas and wooden toys which, she said, would make for ideal Christmas gifts!

Michelle went on a shopping spree after arriving at the National Handicrafts and Handloom Museum in Pragati Maidan complex at 10.45 a.m. She was in the museum for nearly two hours, shooting well past her one-hour scheduled programme.

Museum director Ruchira Ghosh walked Michelle through the galleries devoted to the traditional textiles, rural handicrafts and art of India.

‘Michelle was so impressed with the Indian handicrafts on display that she did not want to leave the museum. She went on a shopping binge, buying almost everything that she came across,’ said Ghosh.

Michelle said she would have bought more had she been left with more money, those at the museum said.

The US first lady exhausted her shopping budget at the crafts museum and said the Indian craft items were ideal gifts of Christmas, barely one-and-a-half months away!

She was clad in the same black and green dress she had worn at Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial Rajghat and from where she drove down in an eight-vehicle convoy to the crafts museum while her husband and US President Barack Obama left for Hyderabad House for talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Her shopping list included four embroidered kantha bed spreads, Kutchi mobile phone bags, Kutchi dolls and a from Gujarati ‘yogi thaila’, which was a cloth bag with sequins and heavy embroidery.

Michelle also bought wooden toys from Karnataka, wooden key chains, three wooden Ganeshas and a wooden toy train. Part of the gifts she bought were also elephants and fans made of rice grain and rice stalk.

Also on display for the first lady were patachitra art from West Bengal, phulkari weaves from Punjab, phoosa art from Karnataka, dushala shawls from Jammu and Kashmir and handicrafts from Himachal Pradesh.

About 20 women artisans from across the country exhibited their work on the occasion.

Michelle was impressed by the rich legacy of Indian crafts.

She also interacted with 15 underprivileged girls of an NGO who make handicraft items for a living and showed a keen interest in the welfare of the girl child, museum sources said.

To add to her cultural experience were ‘baul’ folk singers from West Bengal.

The museum, which is usually closed Monday, was kept open specially for the first lady.

The museum was set up over a period of 30 years starting in the 1950s when the area adjacent to the Pragati Maidan was envisaged as a craft zone for artisans to work for the preservation of traditional art.

The museum has over 20,000 exhibits reflecting Indian crafts traditions and seven galleries spaces for display.

Michelle is accompanying husband Barack Obama during his first trip to India from Nov 6-9.

we hear all the time: I hate the you are picking on O, you don’t see all he has done, you have not given him enough time.

This was not a job where you Had time. He clearly understood that, as he said he was ready to roll on Day one. Unfortunately We are on day 365 X 2 and counting. DID HE THINK THE COUNTRY DID NOT MEAN IT.

When ever I have interview for a job, and I had a definate deadline, I made it. I never went to my boss and said you have not given me enough time. I am really trying. Things were bad when I got this job. I accepted the deadline, and did everything in my power to meet it, or I sat down with my boss and layed it out, why not. He had never indicated he could not do the job.

All we hear from him and his followers is we were unreasonable to expect this much (the much he agreed to), or you don’t appreciate what he has done.

If I see the nobel prize listed one more time as an accommplishment, I am going to vomit.

PrintRSSShare:EmailMoreFarkTechnoratiGoogleLiveMy SpaceNewsvineRedditDeliciousMixxYahooDuring the campaign, Republican Congressman Darrell Issa – the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee – told Rush Limbaugh that Obama is “one of the most corrupt Presidents in modern times.”

Today, he took it back.

When I pressed Issa on “GMA,” the Congressman said that he “tried never to make it a personal statement about the president…I am not saying that the President is personally corrupt. But his administration has to change direction particularly after tax payer money.”

Top of Issa’s list — figuring out what happened to the $700 billion in stimulus spending.

“That $700 billion is gone, we have to figure out, one, where it went and two, how to keep it from going away that way again. The American people cannot afford that,” he said.

Issa also rejected any temporary extension of the Bush tax cuts for wealthy.

“If anything this is wrong minded. In some ways you should say, ‘Look, if you invest today we will let you get a better deal three, four, five years from now because that is how you create jobs,’” he said. “Hopefully we will come to a compromise that does allow people to make decisions beyond just this tax year.”

“So what about the coming scandal that you have stated earlier is going to be hitting the White House? What about it?
Is it still out there? Is it still developing? Stupid question…sorry, but – yeah of course it’s still out there. I would let you know if I heard different. There have been a few more media reports circling the situation. As is most often the case, one investigation will open up another and then the snowball takes off down the hill. That is starting to happen now. It’s big. It’s messy. And if it gets back to the White House, it will be a very significant problem for the administration. It is my understanding they are already working very hard to distance the president. That is what always happens, but once it is happening, it also confirms that there really is an issue out there.

So this thing – this “scandal”, might not actually reach the president? I think it will, and so do others aware of the general situation, but a White House affords a lot of protection. The Obama White House is currently utilizing all of those protective powers at the moment – that is what signaled to me that this was legit. That is when I realized this scandal was really out there and gathering momentum. When certain figures in an administration go into action…the campaign to protect the president from the situation becomes known.”
_______________________________________

“Meanwhile, a team of ex-CIA officers are traveling the globe assembling a dossier of documents on Obama’s past, including his education, passport, travel, and residency records. The team has scoured Kenya, Indonesia, Pakistan, and other countries collecting documents that are not already maintained in the CIA’s own files on Obama’s past. There is a possibility, according to WMR’s sources, that any “smoking gun” documents may be released while Obama is in Asia in order to elicit a public and, perhaps, irrational enough response from the president to prompt the public to begin raising questions about Obama’s suitability for office. Such an incident would make it easier for Biden to begin the succession process that was previously considered when President Richard Nixon was drinking heavily and taking prescription medication during the final days of his administration, twice during the Ronald Reagan administration — ”
________________________________

More specifically, I believe, the CiA are opening and documenting Obama’s Columbia (rumored controversial) thesis, his sealed birth records held in the Vital Statistics Dept in HI , thereby verifying Obama status as a “natural born citizen” or NOT.

The thesis, as I understand, could be construed as treasonous, anti-American pulp promoting Socialism rather than the merits of democracy.

CAIR took the State of Oklahoma to court late last week after the voters passed a constitutional amendment that would ban state courts from using Sharia law. Today, a federal judge ordered the the state board of elections temporarily not to certify the result of the election.

Oklahoma voters approved the amendment in last week’s elections by a 7-3 ratio. But the Council on American-Islamic Relations challenged the measure as a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange issued a temporary restraining order Monday morning that will keep state election officials from certifying that vote.
“What this amendment is going to do is officially disfavor and condemn the Muslim community as being a threat to Oklahoma,” said Muneer Awad, executive director of CAIR’s Oklahoma chapter and the lead plaintiff in the suit. In addition, he said, it would invalidate private documents, such as wills, that are written in compliance with Muslim law.

In fact the text of the amendment does no such thing. Here it is:

The Courts … when exercising their judicial authority, shall uphold and adhere to the law as provided in the United States Constitution, the Oklahoma Constitution, the United States Code, federal regulations promulgated pursuant thereto, established common law, the Oklahoma Statutes and rules promulgated pursuant thereto, and if necessary the law of another state of the United States provided the law of the other state does not include Sharia Law, in making judicial decisions. The courts shall not look to the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not consider international or Sharia Law. The provisions of this subsection shall apply to all cases before the respective courts including, but not limited to, cases of first impression.
Didn’t see anything about invalidating wills in there. Did you?

Anyway, the amendment is on hold because of the court order until a hearing on Nov. 22, at which time the judge will decide whether or not to block it while the case is pending.

If this whole thing sounds familiar, see California, circa 2008 in regards to Prop 8.

Major Garrett says Hoyer wouldn’t make this official if he didn’t think he already had it locked up.

Can you imagine if the Republicans were about to kick their top ranking black congressional leader out of his job? The MFM won’t get into this but you can be the Congressional Black Caucus will not be happy.

The GOP isn’t without its own leadership battle. Michelle Bachmann is looking to turn her support for tea party candidates and activists across the country into the number 4 GOP slot, Chairman of the Republican Conference (a job currently held by Mike Pence and his very presidential hair).

The Minnesota lawmaker, the founder of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress, says everyone wins whether Republicans elect her or Texan Jeb Hensarling as chairman of the House Republican Conference, the party’s No. 4 leadership post when it takes control in January.
“It isn’t that I need to be in the leadership,” Bachmann told USA TODAY. “It’s the ideas and ideals of the Tea Party that are important and need to be represented at the table.”

Incoming Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, is supporting Jeb Hensarling , who by just about all accounts is as, if not more, conservative than Bachmann.

Somewhat related, the House GOP is adding a new leadership spot to represent the incoming freshmen. Looks like tea party favorite Kristi Noem of South Dakota is going to get it.

Gives a whole new meaning to status update.
+Enlarge
British health officials are hard at work on a new app that will allow users to pee into their cell phones and find out within minutes if they have an STD.

Seriously, we could not make this stuff up if we tried.

According to The Guardian, £4 million have been invested in the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, which is creating a smartphone app that will allow users, “to put urine or saliva on to a computer chip about the size of a USB chip, plug it into their phone or computer and receive a diagnosis within minutes.”

Is it still out there? Is it still developing? Stupid question…sorry, but – yeah of course it’s still out there. I would let you know if I heard different. There have been a few more media reports circling the situation. As is most often the case, one investigation will open up another and then the snowball takes off down the hill. That is starting to happen now.

She just goes and goes, even outlasting her staff. She is truely an amazing person. I did not know how all this stuff worked at the State Dept. I really enjoyed this special! Wished it would of been on regular TV for more people to watch just a special she really is.

shadowfax,
You must be watching Greta! Fill me in on what the numbskull has to say. I can’t stand the guy….he is a liar like no other in politics.
———
Yup, Greta is interviewing him.
I would stay in listen and report the entire interview for ya confloyd, but I need to take out the trash.

😆

Honestly, I am going to take a shower because he is too boring to listen to. He is a snake oil salesman. He thinks he is so cute, he is disgusting…ego, ick.

I also read Evan Bayh is backing Pelosi for minority leader…can you believe that???
—————————————
“YES I CAN”. If the stories we are hearing are half true, then she has a score to settle with The One. The One knows this of course and when she challenges him he will crush her like a maggot. But in that case green slime will spew forth in every direction and stain his bespoke tailored Saville Row suit. That will be too much for him. Yes he has had a few bad hair days lately, but nothing like this. The only silver lining is it shows the rest of us that even as a god, he still has human frailties. Like Spock. However, you will be delighted to that he remains infallible as ever–because he never does a fucking thing but do the tourist gig with a Cecil b Demille cast of thousands of bootlickers all in tow, feeding voraciously at the public trough. When he departed for his latest episode of the ugly american, I hear tell that the white house press corps with Tapper in the lead, lined up and serenaded him as he border airforce one with his own version of the Luftwaffe like this:

Seib, whose analysis I always question, believes that the republican have achieved de facto control of the senate now because 23 democratic seats will be open in 2012, and as arlen specter so crudely put it when asked why he changed said (I will do anything it takes “because I want to win.” Yes anything–as in anything moral or immoral, legal or illegal, sacred or profane, anything just to squeeze out another six years feeding at the public trough. I hope that I not being too hard on them.
——————————————-
Republicans May Yet Have Upper Hand in Senate
By GERALD F. SEIB

+ More
Text
On paper, the numbers tell you the Democrats held on to a majority in the Senate last week.

In reality, things won’t be quite that neat. In fact, on some issues the Republicans actually may have a functional majority, given the sentiments likely to prevail among certain Democrats who face the voters in two years.

On paper, Democrats kept control of the Senate after the elections. But in reality, Republican leader Mitch McConnell actually may have the functional majority on some issues. WSJ’s Jerry Seib explains.

Here’s the situation. After last week’s midterm election, the Senate next year will have 51 Democrats, two independents who caucus with the Democrats, and 47 Republicans. (The Republican from Alaska could be either Joe Miller, the tea-party candidate who was the official GOP nominee, or write-in incumbent Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. It appears Ms. Murkowski got enough votes to stick around, but all her write-in votes haven’t been counted yet.)

So, in theory, that means Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, having survived his own election-day near-death experience, should be able to muster 53 votes if he keeps his troops in line.

Full Results by State

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But life is never that simple in the Senate and certainly won’t be now. Among the Senate Democrats, 23 will face re-election in just two years, and, having just witnessed the drubbing some in their party took at the polls, they likely will be even less willing now to toe the party line. Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who caucuses with Democrats, often leans rightward, anyway.

More important, among those 23 Democrats who face voters in 2012 are a handful of incumbents from the kind of moderate to conservative states where Democrats took a beating last week: Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Jon Tester of Montana, Jim Webb of Virginia and Claire McCaskill of Missouri. Joe Manchin, who just won a Senate race in West Virginia by separating himself from President Barack Obama and his party’s congressional leaders, also faces voters again in two years because he was elected only to fill out an unexpired term.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, looks at this field and thinks he may see some votes for his side. He points in particular to his desire to roll back parts of this year’s big health bill.

“There are 23 Democrats up in 2012 and only nine Republicans,” he said in an interview. “I think there is a widespread belief on the other side of the aisle that [the health bill] was a huge mistake. There could be, who knows, a growing number of Democrats who think that was the wrong thing to do.”

Mr. McConnell won’t engage when asked whether Republicans will take the next step and try to persuade any moderate Democrats to switch parties, which has happened in the past when the winds shift. But he adds: “It doesn’t require changing parties to change your mind.”

So maybe there also are Democrats prepared to drift to the Republican side on issues beyond health—say, on spending cuts, tax levels and a new energy program built around such items as electric cars and clean-coal technology. On selected issues, that means Mr. McConnell actually might find it at least as easy as the Democrats’ Mr. Reid to assemble a working majority.

Of course, there are distinct limits to how much that means in the ever-messy Senate. In a body where any 41 members can mount and sustain a filibuster to stop action, having a bare majority, real or functional, has limited impact.

Moreover, lest Mr. McConnell be tempted to feel cocky about his position, he has internal problems of his own. Though tea-party favorites Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Sharron Angle in Nevada lost their Senate bids, Rand Paul from Sen. McConnell’s own Kentucky won his race, and there’s still a chance that tea partier Joe Miller of Alaska may prevail. Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina has become a kind of spiritual godfather to the tea-party movement.

And anyone who operates under the tea-party banner isn’t likely to feel he is in Congress to compromise on principles to get things done but is highly likely to feel he has a mandate to defy the established leaders in both parties. So the Republican conference could be as unruly and unreliable as the Democratic one.

Asked about that prospect, Mr. McConnell notes that among the 13 new Republicans about to take Senate seats, there are several experienced politicians who know how to get things done in a legislative chamber: Former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats is returning, for example, and seats are being taken by North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven and former House Republican whip Roy Blunt.

The real upshot may be that, in a Senate where neither party really has a clear majority on every issue, party discipline means less and the opportunity for free-lancing and interparty mash-ups grows.

Cannot wait to read admins reaction to the Nat Geo special.
My take
WOW! She rocks.
The first time Hillary’s voice is heard she is acknowledging all of the unseen workers not once did she utter the words I am the Secretary of State.
Favorite though was when she said something along the lines of even those that are not democracies have to listen to the people. — Ouch for bambi.

Many thank God moments that this woman is in the position she is
If you missed– it will be rerun on NatGeo

Wayne Madsen: “Meanwhile, a team of ex-CIA officers are traveling the globe assembling a dossier of documents on Obama’s past…”

Watch out, Ø, the CIA is a serious agency not bound to any preset White House memes. If any of us have doubts about this, I suggest watching “Fair Game”, which is a blow-by-blow account of Valerie Plame’s travails with the Bush administration.

confloyd: “All I can say about Hillary’s State Dept. show is WOW! I had no idea! Well back to the show!”

While I was unable to watch the show, I am not surprised by your reaction, as I keep an eye on the State site every day. Why not do the same?

As she said in her opening remarks, Hillary heads an operation of 60,000 people who work in an atmosphere very different from that of her predecessor. Rice was a Bush ideologue who let Defense run the show.

Now, in all that concerns foreign policy, Hillary runs the show and is on top of every issue. She is always the smartest one in the room, and this results in the “loyalty” from her staff that she is famous for, only this time it is not the 55-member Senate staff but 60,000 experienced diplomats. This competence is felt world-wide, and to illustrate that I offer an article from the Australian “ABC” after Hillary’s recent visit to Australia:

American asset: Clinton’s hidden talent

by Harry Melkonian

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has brought wonderful and woefully-needed leadership administrative competence to the US State Department.

The same skills that she employs in managing her bureaucracy served her well in her Asian excursion. Her ability to use diplomatic tools, as opposed to the US navy, as a mechanism to further American policy is easy to recognise but difficult to describe.

Her techniques represent a welcome departure from the style employed in the previous administration. With the exception of the rather eccentric though effective Nixon/Kissinger duet [he’s forgetting the Clinton administration here], American foreign policy has invariably been that of a solo player – sometimes looked at as a bully. Hillary Clinton, who has been given a broad charter by US president Obama, clearly recognises the limits of unilateralism and is working to build American foreign policy built on cooperation and consultation. From an Australian perspective, as a regional power, the secretary’s efforts are to be commended.

While the secretary’s current visit was planned long before the mid-term election results, the success and smoothness of her visit cannot be entirely separated from the mauling the Obama administration took at the polls last week. Not only did the Democrats lose 60 House Seats and come perilously close to losing control of the Senate where only 33 per cent of the seats were in contention, the Democrats in many cases struggled to retain otherwise safe seats.

In other words, under Obama, safe Democratic seats became marginals. In contrast to such a dismal domestic political environment, the style and effectiveness of Hillary Clinton is a very distinct bright spot for the administration. This is not to say that her visit to Asia was all style without substance designed to play well on the US nightly news. The style was coupled with incredible diplomatic effectiveness.

Without the ideological fetters of some of her predecessors, Dr Rice immediately comes to mind, secretary Clinton is approaching foreign policy with a very honest and sincere American view that despite the rise of other nations, the US still has a critical role to play in maintaining world stability. However, based on the debacles of the preceding Bush administration, secretary Clinton knows that American influence must be based on engagement and discussion rather than impossibly costly military exercises. In a word, she brings both idealism and political realism to foreign policy that has for too long been the domain of academic ideologues.

Hillary Clinton has a secret weapon that she is not afraid to use: despite the rise of China, Brazil, India and Russia as economic powers, none of those nations is very effective on the world stage and, with all its faults, the US is far more pleasant as an international partner than any of the world’s rising economic stars. Because of cultural and linguistic factors, there is simply no real competition for the US, and Clinton has shown herself to be quite adept at using the comfort factor of US culture as a foreign policy tool.

Witness how at ease and nonchalant she is at discussing enhancement of the US military presence in Australia. She raises the point with complete familiarity and matter-of-factness with the knowledge that the US is not viewed as an occupying power and, with some exceptions, is generally viewed as a benign guest. Such conversations would be far more difficult for her predecessors who insisted on putting matters into ideological terms.

To make my point, I will go out on limb and say that secretary Clinton would enjoy the same relationship and effectiveness regardless of who occupies the Lodge. She was here not as a partisan member of the Democratic Party, though she is indeed a very partisan politician, but rather she was here as probably the pre-eminent foreign policy figure in the world.

Viewed in this light, it is really quite wonderful to see how she operates. She has all the ease of a politician working a crowd and is not cowed by academics or experts because she knows that she is every bit as bright as anyone else. In short, she understands people and power even in the elevated world of foreign ministers.

As for results, this trip has already had successes. The secretary is making Americanism an essential aspect or component of foreign policy in every nation she visits. She is capitalising on the familiarity of America and using that familiarity to fill the gaps in other countries’ policies with American policies. She knows that no other nation is in a position to do this and none will be able to for the foreseeable future. Make no mistake about it, she is pushing an American agenda but she achieves it by making American policy Japanese policy or Filipino policy or even Australian policy.

Even at the height of their influence, the Soviets could never master this craft and for so many reasons, I believe that the Chinese simply cannot. Watch her closely – it is like watching a grand master playing bridge or chess. The technique is as exciting as the results.

And here are some of the Australian reactions to the above article:
—–

I cannot agree more with this article. I think Hillary Clinton has grown into her role as the US Secretary of State, as very few have done. It is very refreshing to watch the way she acts in this role after the previous US administration.

As already stated here, she performed her role with absolute ease in the interview and question and answer forum she did with Leigh Sales on Sunday. In regards to her statement that she was not considering a second run at the White House, I was surprised in one way, but not really.

In consideration of the current political climate in the US, it is probably far more satisfying for her to be in the position of Secretary of State than that of being the President. That is, even if being President is the highest and most esteemed position of public service that you can attain in the US. After all, in the current economic and political climate, I think any President is in for a ‘shellacking’ as he said, no matter what that President tried to do. And I have no doubt that the Tea Party would have attacked her exactly in the say way if she had won the Presidency, instead of Obama.

Doug Quixote :

Hidden talent? Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t it Hillary who said that the White House and the USA was getting “two for the price of one” in about 1992, as Bill Clinton’s First Lady? (probably not really the first but that’s neither here nor there 🙂 )

She is immensely talented and committed to “making a difference” as the saying goes. It was a joy to see how she handled the thorny questions at the ABC forum recently.

US national interest does not change but there are ways to conduct diplomacy without bluster. Theodore Roosevelt said to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. If the speaker is also attractive and personable, even better.

***
Danny :

I must say also after watching Hilary being interviewed by Leigh Sales in the Q & A forum she was very much at ease, confident without being high-handed yet presented her argument with certainty. Where Obama appears at times too professorial & aloof, Hilary does not. I still sometimes wonder whether the Democratic party made the wrong decision as Obama is still growing into the role & is yet to fully sieze the role he has as President.

***
samantha :

Agree with Danny’s sentiments. I still think that the Democrats should have chosen Hilary Clinton as their candidate, instead of Obama. I have always thought that she was “the one”, while Obama, like Kevin Rudd was the media’s choice. Sadly for him he may go the way of Rudd.

****
realist:

Hilary Clinton will hopefully be remembered as one of the worlds great diplomats. She is way in front of anybody else on the world stage at present.

****
Hudson Godfrey :

I don’t think she has to go the route of VP to get the nomination in 2016 I suspect she probably only has to live that long.

****
Maka:

I was pleasantly surprised. An articulate, witty politician with the ability to cleverly and subtly pursue an agenda regardless of the cynicism or apathy of the audience is something (unfortunately) rarely seen in Australia of late!

****
woman with chooks:

Thanks for this. I watched Leigh Sales interview Hillary Rodham Clinton with delight. The ease with which Clinton worked the room was apparent. Given the demise of Obama and his ‘shellacking’ I am devastated to hear she has other life plans and wouldn’t consider another run for the oval office. I also love the grace with which she put aside her differences and joined Obama’s team. I hope she will chamge her mind.

**********
Tom 1 :

I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed here. Maybe it is because she is a woman, but I would shudder if Julie Bishop were to put in the same position.

****
ben_eficient:

In front of many a limpid bloke, there’s a good woman!
….but I’m not sure Julia can pick up the traces ?
Go for it Hillary…..you might just redeem your country from its gloomy demise

As to the surprise and/or disappointment the Australians express concerning any presidential plans Hillary may have, the disappointment is telling of their underlying view that she would make an excellent president, especially in view of the current and immediately preceding chief executives, but also of their own ignorance of the fact that she cannot, as diplomat, make any statements that would involve herself in US domestic politics.

From Americans for Prosperity, an event you may wish to follow:
The Lame Duck Session is now a reality, with both the House and the Senate set to return Nov. 15th for a one week session, followed by a one week break for Thanksgiving, and at least one more week at the beginning of December. AFP activists will travel to the nation’s capital to tell Congress that November has spoken and Washington can’t ignore the American people in a lame duck session.

November Speaks Event on Capitol Hill
Monday, Nov. 15th, NOON
Featuring Rep. Michele Bachmann and other speakers
If you can’t make our event in Washington, D.C., click here join the virtual March on Washington and let Congress know you won’t let them ignore the election.
h t t p://novemberspeaks.com/

California is borrowing an average of $40 million a day from the federal government in order to help pay unemployment benefits, according to the Los Angeles Times. With interest, the amount may become more than the state can afford to pay back.

The borrowed money is used to pay off unemployment insurance. It is estimated that California will owe the federal government $16 billion by 2012, an additional strain on the state’s already-stressed budget.

The problem is not only the amount that the state is borrowing, but also the interest that is compounding. According to the LA Times, the state will need to pay the federal government $362 million by the end of next September.

Unemployment in the state is a major problem. It is estimated that 1 in 8 Californians are unemployed, a figure higher than the national average. In September, the national unemployment rate was 9.2% while California’s unemployment rate was 12.2%.

The temporary solution to the problem is to increase unemployment taxes for employers. It is currently at $21 per each worker, but the rate will continue to rise if the state continues to borrow.

Governor-elect Jerry Brown has his work cut out for him when tackling the state budget crisis. With this report, his main challenge will be to control the spending without cutting back on unemployment benefits.

California is borrowing an average of $40 million a day from the federal government in order to help pay unemployment benefits, according to the Los Angeles Times. With interest, the amount may become more than the state can afford to pay back.

The borrowed money is used to pay off unemployment insurance. It is estimated that California will owe the federal government $16 billion by 2012, an additional strain on the state’s already-stressed budget.

The problem is not only the amount that the state is borrowing, but also the interest that is compounding. According to the LA Times, the state will need to pay the federal government $362 million by the end of next September.

Unemployment in the state is a major problem. It is estimated that 1 in 8 Californians are unemployed, a figure higher than the national average. In September, the national unemployment rate was 9.2% while California’s unemployment rate was 12.2%.

The temporary solution to the problem is to increase unemployment taxes for employers. It is currently at $21 per each worker, but the rate will continue to rise if the state continues to borrow.

Governor-elect Jerry Brown has his work cut out for him when tackling the state budget crisis. With this report, his main challenge will be to control the spending without cutting back on unemployment benefits.

Jakarta (IANS)- A number of student groups in Indonesia have staged demonstrations to protest US President Barack Obama’s visit to the country, demanding that the government should stop bowing to America’s foreign policies.

A group of students from University of Indonesia (UI) held a protest Monday on the campus premises, opposing Obama’s visit, Xinhua reported.

Obama, who is on a 10-day Asian trip, Tuesday left for Indonesia after a four-day visit to India.

The protesters who burned down the US flag called on the government to uphold the country’s dignity and stop bowing to US government foreign policies.

“Indonesian government seems like dead already. It always bows to US policies,” one of the students shouted during the protest that was held here.

The UI campus is listed as one of the places Obama will visit during his two-day visit to Indonesia.

Another group joined by hundreds of students, called themselves as Student Movement for Freedom, staged a protest in front of US embassy in Jakarta Friday last week.

They opposed the visit of the president of the country they regarded “a new colonialist”, the report said.

I will be flying in two weeks. I wish i could change my ticket to take Greyhound even though it will take three days to get to where i am going. Maybe we all should boycott the airlines, even for one day it would hurt them.

Remember all this polling leading up to 2008, and Hillary over and over again being asked and being polled.

Then this dark horse from the back springs forward, no one rips him apart, no record to rip apart, no records available, and people acted like they were at a rock concert. The expected nothing of him other than he show up and speak from a teleprompter.

People called her diversive, yet he is the most diversive person we have ever seen. People picked at every one of her flaws, picked at the rare misspeaks, and his smoking, his misspeaks, though there were many were ignored.

I personnel would rather vote for a peson that I knew, flaws and all than someone who can not even be bothered to prove they were really born here.

Maybe the volcano is telling us something. Obviously it does not want him to stay long.

As for the body search video and neetabug’s reaction to it, I think there is the real possibility of rounding up a bunch of injured parties and putting together a class suit against the federal government. The injured parties are not just the frisked passengers like neetabug, but the airlines themselves, since the airlines will be losing outraged passengers (as indicated in the video and by neetabug’s remarks). The ACLU should have no trouble putting together a class action on the question.

California Borrowing $40 Million a Day in Unemployment Benefits
—————————————————-
1. When a state like California is on path to bankruptcy, what do they do? They elect reject two candidates with a track record of solving fiscal problems, i.e. Whitman and Fiorina, and they blindly elect two candidate who have a track record of creating such problems, i.e. Brown and Boxer.

2. During the Spanish Civil War there was writer and commentator in Madrid named Jose Ortega. He was a far more reliable witness to that blood event than Hemingway, who was too caught up in machismo to understand that event at the political level. Later Ortega wrote a book about people he called mass men who had no defining characteristic other than left wing extemism, collective insanity and predatory behavior. Today we call them progressives. And he said this about them:

When mass men are starving, they protest by burning down a bread factory. By the same inscrutable logic–or lack there of the majority of the California electorate (including illegals who slip past the monitors) re-hire the very people who buried them, i.e. Brown and Boxer—expecting a different result.

One other thing about Hillary’s film, it also showcased the people involved in the State Dept.’s work…in otherwards, the show was not “all about Hillary”. Of coarse we knew it wouldn’t be because Hillary wanted to show what everybody does not just herself. She is also humble! She is also very proud of her staff and most of all her country….the film showcased all of that.

Norma Desmond, I didn’t watch the series about the Pirates, I sure would have if I’d know it was about BO’s first failure as Potus. I have been wanting to watch Sarah’s daughter on “Dancing with the Stars”. So I finally got to see her.

Getting back to the State Dept. film, I can’t imagine living in that bumble that were talking about…never being alone or anything close to that. People who serve give up their personal freedom to serve. Of coarse I’m sure Obama loves it, but Hillary had to get used to it. It tells of her dislike of it in her book “A Living History”. I have an autographed copy of it which I cherish.

Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has an upcoming speech in which she criticizes a plan to institute ‘[quantitative*] easing,’ which is in this case basically the practice of creating money via buying our own debt (this particular example of the practice is usually called ‘QE2′ by the papers, apparently because the term is more confusing to people than simply calling it ‘[quantitative] easing’). Palin makes the fairly obvious point that this encourages inflation, and in the process mentions that food prices have significantly gone up recently.

Sarah Palin raises an eyebrow, as her source for that claim was apparently… the Wall Street Journal, which reported last week that food prices had significantly gone up recently. It also derives that conclusion from an examination of the CPI, which suggests that if Reddy has an issue with the methodology, then Reddy should probably take it up with his own newspaper.

As Palin put it: “Now I realize I’m just a former governor and current housewife from Alaska, but even humble folks like me can read the newspaper. I’m surprised a prestigious reporter for the Wall Street Journal doesn’t.”

Agreed, but I’d go one step further: it’s fascinating to see what an editor for the media will let pass through. Statement that food prices are rising? Smart! Sarah Palin agreeing with your statement that food prices are rising? Dumb!

And they wonder why even their own reporters don’t read the papers anymore.

This quantitative easing whereby the Fed creates a mountain of money out of thin air, with no corresponding rise in productivity to support it,will over time generate inflation, which threatens the buying power of everyone on fixed income, especially the elderly who in most cases are sailing close to the wind. This move is the culmination of a long policy debate within the Fed over whether the current threat to the economy extant is inflation or deflation. It is very unpopular now overseas. China, Germany and Russia are protesting, because we are the world reserve currency and it benefits our exports over theirs. This is a good way to lose our status as the world reserve currency. So naturally, Obama like Soros applauds it. He was under no obligation to comment on this, all he needed to say was this is the decision of the Fed and they are independent of the political process, but he chooses instead to weigh in. To me this is further circumstantial evidence that he is controlled by the latter day saints of the Jekyl Island cabal. Either that or else he is politically stupid, and has incurred the wrath of our largest lender by an empty headed gratuitous statement which does our country no good whatsoever.

Bismark was asked if there would be a war on the continent and he said yes. Whereupon he was asked what the cause, i.e. causus belli would be? He replied “some damned thing in the Balkans.” By the same token some damned foolish off the cuff statement by Messiah Obama may be all it takes to touch off a trade war between the United States and China. And where will we be then, with our manufacturing sector gone and our economy in hock up to its eyeballs to China? The only thing that prevents that from happening right now is the fact that China has not developed their own consumer market to the point that it can sustain their economy. When that day arrives however, as surely it will, then they can cut us off with impunity, and we can sit around in bankuptcy court listening to Obama speeches about hope and change ringing in our ears. Or we can visit him at his retirement home in Hawaii, put our feet up on the couch, tell Michelle what we think of her personal fashion and decotage, and ask our buddy Barack to explain to us his pedigree because we are tired of his lame excuse that it is murky.

wbboei,
He’s already chastised the Israeli’s this morning…no doubt he was without his teleprompter for a couple of minutes, which is dangerous when he is overseas…their media is not bought and paid for by Soro’s Inc.

wbboei
So basically seniors who worked their whole lives, did the right things, saved for the future and paid their taxes are going to see their nest eggs become severely reduced because soros is disgusted by the American middle class?

I’d love to see some hard data on how much money the citizenry of the emerging wealthy countries have contributed to disasters around the globe. Bet you will find it was the Red, White and Blue that coughed up the most.
How many Americans via habitat for humanity, Doctors without Borders, peace corps and others have risked life and limb to do their bit. He gives a billion here and a billion there but he has an agenda. He reminds me of a story bout an older lady who lost her husband and gave what she could. george spourous of course loathes Christianity.

Personally, those republicans had better investigate this POS or they will never get my votes again. If they can investigate the Clinton’s from birth to present, they can most certainly investigate the one….I could care less about black sentiment regarding the investigations. The man is a crook and is hiding behind the color of his skin and daring the republicans to try it.

confloyd: “Even the bomb sniffing dog gets a spot in Hillary’s State Dept. film. LOL! It must be nice working for someone like Hillary, most bosses want all the credit…”

As far as I know, Hillary has always shifted credit to someone else and avoided taking credit even for things she herself has done. This is her modus operandi. I have a nephew who worked on her Senate staff and said she always made him feel like he was the source of all the imaginable good in the world, as long as he did his job right. After a few weeks of run-in, he began showing up at 7 am just to see if he could be the first one in the office.

wbboei: “…China, Germany and Russia are protesting, because we are the world reserve currency and it benefits our exports over theirs. This is a good way to lose our status as the world reserve currency….”

China is protesting by way of buying up euros. The Chinese are making the euro their reserve currency, not only because the euro is stronger and more stable, but because they are buying more and more investment goods from European countries so having euros on hand makes that cheaper. As concerns China, at least (and maybe Russia too), we’re losing out on three levels – monetary, financial, and industrial.

Mr. Obama remains popular among Indonesians, who view him as a prodigal son. Mr. Obama was greeted with unusual excitement. A cheer went up in the Istana Negara, the sprawling state palace, when Indonesian television broadcast the landing of Air Force One. And even louder cheer erupted when he stepped off the plane. In a driving rainstorm, Jakarta residents lined the streets to watch his motorcade go by.

But the false starts before this trip may have dimmed the enthusiasm.

“Has he finally made it?” asked Zulfan Adi, a childhood friend of the U.S. president’s. “Good, then he keeps his promise this time.”

The 50-year-old man, now a tourist guide in West Java, said, “When he was just elected as president, we were so excited and thought, whoa, one of us made it as the United States’ president. Can you imagine, a kid that played pebble with us is president? That’s really mind blowing. We never thought of this chubby, odd-looking boy becoming an important figure.”

(Reuters) – Would Secretary of State Hillary Clinton consider swapping Cabinet hats to become the next U.S. defense secretary after Robert Gates leaves?

That was the question asked of both during a joint interview with ABC News while they were in Australia and aired on Tuesday on “Good Morning America.”

President Barack Obama is expected to recalibrate his administration following congressional election losses for his fellow Democrats that flipped control of the House of Representatives to Republicans.

That leaves plenty of room for rumors circulating about who is in and who is out in Washington.

Gates, a holdover from the Republican administration of George W. Bush, has signaled his intention to resign next year. “We’re hoping that that timeline keeps moving further and further beyond. We came in together, we should go out together, that’s my theory,” Clinton said laughing while seated next to Gates.

Asked whether she could do his job, Gates replied: “Sure.”

Then he elaborated: “I will say this, I think that one of the great strengths that Hillary brings to the job as secretary of state is as spokesperson for the United States around the world. That’s not the role of secretary of defense.”

What if Obama asked her to serve as defense secretary? “I have made it clear I love the job that I have,” Clinton responded.

An interview with just Clinton will air on ABC’s “Nightline” later on Tuesday, ABC said.

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Clinton would make a good defense secretary.

“Well if she would take it, then she would be terrific,” Gingrich said on “Good Morning America.”

“She’s knowledgeable, she’s tough, I think that she would be a very aggressive defender of the military in terms of what it needs and its budgets and its concerns,” he said.

“I’m not sure she would have quite as much fun. I think she’s probably having an even better time being secretary of state,” Gingrich said.

we’re losing out on three levels – monetary, financial, and industrial.
—————————–

That is the bad news. The good news is we have Barack who between gratuitous world tours, lavish vacations, and soirees with sports figures is working on these three problems feverishly day and night. And anyone who believes that (other than Tapper) must also believe in the tooth fairy.

Maybe they can split her in half or clone her and she can do both jobs…

Clinton, Gates Interview Fuels Job Rumors

2010-11-10

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on Tuesday appeared in a nationally televised interview, responding to questions weather Clinton can take over the Pentagon after Gates’ planned exit next year, fueling rumors about Clinton’s possible job switch.

Responding to a question as whether Clinton can do his job from ABC’s Cynthia McFadden, Gates responded with “sure.” He then went on to explain Clinton’s current job as “spokesperson for the United States” is quite different from the one he has now.

Clinton, who sat beside Gates in the interview, said she didn’t want Gates to go. “We’re hoping that that timeline keeps moving further and further beyond. We came in together, we should go out together,” Clinton said, noting she loves the job she has. The interview aired in ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Gates told Foreign Policy magazine in an interview published in August that he would quit his job next year. Gates said by 2011, they will know if the strategy the administration is implementing is working in Afghanistan, and “it seems like somewhere there in 2011 is a logical opportunity to hand off.”

The Obama administration has not chosen a successor to Gates, but rumors that Clinton might be the next Pentagon chief have been circulating in Washington in recent days.

wbboei,
He’s already chastised the Israeli’s this morning…no doubt he was without his teleprompter for a couple of minutes, which is dangerous when he is overseas…their media is not bought and paid for by Soro’s Inc.
——————–
Yes Connie. I saw it in the Wall Street Journal article posted above.

Jeweszy, If Hillary can work that kind of magic on her employees, imagine how she is working on World leaders. I know the Israeli’s only want to talk to her. LOL! I imagine she just inspires trust. She had mine and has had it since she ran for Potus. I would venture to say she is the only one in the current government that I do trust.

Jan, I do not mind this talk about defense–just as long as it does not happen. I would be shocked if she accepted. The one who has been pushing this dead end job is that Obama loving asshole Leslie Gelb former New York Times writer and former head of the Council of Foreign Relations which was founded by one of my heroes who came from the creme of the diplomatic tradition i.e. George Kennan, but has lately fallen under the influence of unimaginative untethered fools like Joe Kline and in the instant case Leslie Gelb. They do not speak for America’s best interests or least of all Hillary’s.

SouthernBorn,
I am already sick of hearing about GWB’s book. I will not be buying it. I have read Hillary’s, Bill’s and Sarah’s. That’s enough for me, even though I’m a Texan, I don’t consider George Bush a Texan. I was/still am sick of Bush and sincerely hope we are not going to see another Bush run for Potus, even though we all know it’s mama’s wish to see Jeb in the WH. I really don’t want another Texan in the office of the Presidency for a while.

I read this comment just now from someone who was commenting on the article that I am linking here. I haven’t read too many entries on hillaryis44 in the past few days, and I have not read any of the comments for this post by the admin, so this article might have been discussed already here. Regardless, the following comment was found in the comment section. I found it interesting, and what I suspected for quite some time. Here is the link to the article with the comment blockquoted at the end.

Type your comment here…I don’t believe there’s any truth to the fact that WH insiders urged Obama to disappear for 12 days on the Asian trip. The plans must have been implemented months before mid-terms.

The fact is, Obama told his handlers after he won the election that he did not want to spend time inside the WH….he wanted to be free to roam around ‘among the people’.
This is all part and parcel of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder…a serious mental disease. He is literally drunk with power and needs a daily fix of public adulation….it’s pure heroin to him.
The Berlin speech should have been the tip-off for everyone….he wanted the Brandenburg Gate, but Merkel told him to get lost!
I attended a fundraiser (as a guest) for Boxer in San Francisco a few months ago. I sat a few feet away from Obama and had the chance to observe him up close and personal. It was an eye-opener. He could spot a camera a mile away….EXP. He would be in the middle of a deep conversation with his table guests and the second he sensed a camera, he turned his entire body toward the lens and broke into the fake, phony, obnoxious smile. The strange thing was he HELD THE SMILE for an inordinate amount of time!!! It was eerie and creepy!
The guy is a sicko! Trust me! He doesn’t give a darn about the country or it’s people….he is addicted to the roar of the crowds.

GOP Will Be Able to Block Obama’s Agenda
Monday, 08 Nov 2010 09:46 AM Article Font Size
By George Will

When Alexander Pope was on his deathbed, his doctor assured him that his breathing, pulse, and other vital signs were improving. “Here I am,” Pope said to a friend, “dying of a hundred good symptoms.”

Some Democrats read the election returns as symptoms of health because things could have been worse: “Happily, we have leprosy, not cholera.” But embracing the fallacy of false alternatives is not a step toward recuperation. Neither is continuing the attitude Democrats adopted when passing Obamacare and that foretold their unhappy election: “No compromise with the voters!”

For the second time in 24 months, Barack Obama has been at the epicenter of a historic election, this time with voters reconsidering the first one. For the third time in four years, they have emphatically complained. Democrats gained a total of 54 House seats in 2006 and 2008, but after Tuesday are in a net deficit over the last three cycles.

On Oct. 1, Nancy Pelosi, referring to Republicans, said, “I would rather be where we are than where they are.” Now she is where they were — in the minority in the House. The Democrats’ House caucus will be smaller and more homogenously liberal. Their Senate caucus will be leavened by one freshman who got there by strongly criticizing the defining aspects of Obama’s agenda (Joe Manchin of West Virginia) and another who endorsed an important part of George W. Bush’s (Chris Coons of Delaware, who endorsed extension of all the Bush tax cuts).

When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had 40 or 41 senators in his caucus, he usually had 40 or 41 votes when he felt he urgently needed them. Beginning in January, with at least 46 senators, he will always have 41 votes when he really wants them.

So, speculation about whether Obama will “change course” is surreal. Whether or not he adheres to his agenda of relentless expansion of government (e.g., cap-and-trade) and promiscuous rewards for Democratic constituencies (e.g., trying to stimulate the economy with trickle-down government spending that sustains unionized public employees), remember: The iceberg was indifferent to the Titanic’s course. And now, possessing House committee gavels and subpoena power, Republican chairmen will be able to limit Obama’s ability to use the “permanent government” — the bureaucracy — to accomplish through regulation what he cannot achieve through legislation.

Congressional supremacy was the Framers’ preference and expectation: The Constitution’s Article I concerns the legislative branch. As Georgetown University’s George Carey notes, the Framers “regarded Congress as the mainspring of the constitutional system.”

It “possesses virtually all the powers delegated to the national government” and “can ‘discipline’ the other branches through its impeachment and removal powers.” But the protean power of the modern presidency, combined with Congress’ often invertebrate nature, means that, as John Boehner said Tuesday, “It’s the president who sets the agenda for our government.”

Synthetic indignation is to Washington what steel once was to Pittsburgh — the city’s defining commodity — so there was theatrical disapproval when McConnell said “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” Presidential supremacy makes this any opposition’s priority. And what do the indignant think Obama considers the single most important thing he wants to achieve, if not a second term?

National Democrats’ desperate attempts to defeat Marco Rubio in Florida’s Senate race culminated in their dissembling about their attempts to force their party’s nominee to leave the race and support the independent candidacy of Plasticman, aka Gov. Charlie Crist. This maneuver reprised Democratic fury against Clarence Thomas 19 years ago.

Back then, an African-American conservative was an affront to the Democratic Party’s sense of entitlement regarding African-Americans’ support. Today, two Hispanic Republicans — Rubio and Gov.-elect Susana Martinez of New Mexico — threaten Democratic hopes for similar sway over America’s largest and fastest-growing minority.

Finally, give a thought to a subject almost no one has wanted to talk about this autumn. The nation is in the 10th year of its longest war and in what has been for American forces the deadliest year of that war. Do not assume that all freshman Republicans will support the current strategy and objectives — whatever they are — in Afghanistan.

The flavorful ingredients in the simmering stew that is the tea party impulse include a dash of the foreign policy skepticism associated with the Robert Taft tradition of conservatism. The Ohio senator died in 1953; the need for his prudence did not.

I just read about this on another site about an hour ago. I find this soooo funny. She gets mocked by all of these people from all different sides, and yet, it’s usually the mockers that come out looking foolish. I love Sarah, warts and all.

It’s not enough for the republicans to just block Obama’s agenda, I want them to investigate the man. If the republicans can accuse Hillary of murder, surely they should investigate Obama on many REAL issues.

Jim Webb’s name is being discussed as a person to primary Obama…lets hope someone does….better yet for him to decide he just doesn’t like the job.

Jim Webb’s name is being discussed as a person to primary Obama
——————————
There is no chance of that, in my opinion. I know Jim a little and have been a promoter. I know what he believes and I know he is not comfortable. But there is no place in the party for moderate democrats. They are an extinct specie. Just as moderate Republicans once were. There would be no support for a Webb candidacy because the party now is Boshevik. The Republicans have him in their sites for 2012 according to the latest Morris article. I think he will not seek a second term.

Perks of the job ain’t bad
Ed Henry
Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) — Even on days when he’s jet-lagged and probably still reeling from that shellacking in the midterm election, President Obama can’t help blurting out sometimes that the perks of being the commander in chief are pretty cool. But first the president had to deal with a driving rain as he and first lady Michelle Obama arrived here for one of the elaborate outdoor ceremonies that are a staple in Asian countries … Then, when we got our first real glimpse of Obama beyond just the arrival photo-ops, he showed up at a joint news conference with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono looking pretty tired and jet-lagged like the rest of us. But when a reporter asked Obama to reminisce a little about his days in Indonesia, his mood seemed to brighten, as he talked about arriving in 1967 and finding the best way to get around town was by riding this “sort of bicycle rickshaw thing” in the streets. “Sort of like little taxis, but you stood in the back and it was very crowded,” said Obama. “Now as president I can’t even see any traffic because they block all of the streets.”
It reminded me of another rare moment when Obama let his hair down about the perks of the job while staying in one of my favorite cities, Las Vegas, Nevada, back in May 2009. Obama was delivering remarks at a fundraiser for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, at Caesars Palace, the casino hotel that then-Sen. Obama had grown to like during his many nights on the Strip in 2008 campaigning against Hillary Clinton in the hotly contested Nevada caucuses. “I thought I had a pretty nice room [before],” Obama said to laughter. “But now that I’m president, they upgraded me. I got the upgrade. And it’s a really nice room now.”
I didn’t realize just how nice the president’s room was until I read Barbara De Lollis’ blog at usatoday.com, Hotel Check-in, that uncovers fun travel tidbits. De Lollis reported that Obama “stayed in a 22,000 square foot suite — equal to roughly 10 average-sized American homes — in Caesars’ renovated Forum Tower.” Besides having great views of the Strip, the suite has an outdoor patio with a private pool. I guess it’s the type of room reserved for movies like “Rain Man” and “Hangover” — and traveling presidents, who even on a bad day have it pretty good.http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/09/obama.perks/

The Republicans have him in their sites for 2012 according to the latest Morris article. I think he will not seek a second term.
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Who Jim Webb or Obama? I think the Republicans are planning to use Obama and push their complete agenda. We’ll see how that works out. Many people voted them in to stop Obama’s agenda and make sure he did not seek/win a second term.
Looks like Gingrich knows that the republicans have just gained the Hillary democrats, so he’s not going to irritate us.

On Friday, I sent you an email about how the Blue Dogs, even after losing half of their members in the 2010 elections, were trying to oust Nancy Pelosi as the leader of Democrats in the House. Apparently, the Blue Dogs want to bring their special brand of magic–caving to Republicans, and then losing to them anyway–to the entire House Democratic caucus.

A couple of hours after I sent you that email, Speaker Pelosi fought back, and announced she would run for re-election as House Democratic Leader. She did so because of the overwhelming support she received from progressive members of Congress and tens of thousands of members of the Daily Kos community in the face of the Blue Dog threat.

The leadership battle is on now, and both sides are trying to round up as many supporters as possible. The Blue Dogs have Wall Street on their side, so it’s imperative we let Nancy Pelosi–and all House Democrats–know the grassroots are firmly on her side.

Sign the petition showing your support for Nancy Pelosi as House Democratic Leader. I should have an opportunity to deliver the signatures to her personally later this week, so she will know you’ve got her back.

The fight for 2012 is on,
Chris Bowers
Campaign Director, Daily Kos

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They just don’t get the message when I tell them to go F themselves, as a reply.

Shadowfax
November 9th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Just what I needed…an email from the Daily Kooks:

Spare Change,

On Friday, I sent you an email about how the Blue Dogs, even after losing half of their members in the 2010 elections, were trying to oust Nancy Pelosi as the leader of Democrats in the House. Apparently, the Blue Dogs want to bring their special brand of magic–caving to Republicans, and then losing to them anyway–to the entire House Democratic caucus.

A couple of hours after I sent you that email, Speaker Pelosi fought back, and announced she would run for re-election as House Democratic Leader. She did so because of the overwhelming support she received from progressive members of Congress and tens of thousands of members of the Daily Kos community in the face of the Blue Dog threat.

The leadership battle is on now, and both sides are trying to round up as many supporters as possible. The Blue Dogs have Wall Street on their side, so it’s imperative we let Nancy Pelosi–and all House Democrats–know the grassroots are firmly on her side.

Sign the petition showing your support for Nancy Pelosi as House Democratic Leader. I should have an opportunity to deliver the signatures to her personally later this week, so she will know you’ve got her back.

The fight for 2012 is on,
Chris Bowers
Campaign Director, Daily Kos

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They just don’t get the message when I tell them to go F themselves, as a reply.
_______________________________________________

No, and they’re doubling down on stupid, using the loss of the moderate element of the party as evidence that the radicals can win. Nevermind the extremely limited # of districts within which they can win. Dems are purging any semblance of reasonableness from their ranks. Good luck with that.

“Today, police officers, activists, and governments are coordinating their efforts more effectively.”

11-08-2010

The crime of trafficking in humans, also known as slavery, is a global problem that affects an estimated 12 to 27 million people worldwide. “Human trafficking has become big business, generating billions of dollars each year,” said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. “Almost every country in the world is affected, either as a source or a destination for trafficking victims. … Far too many continue to live in bondage and in fear.”

But we are fighting back, said Attorney General Holder. Ten years ago, recognizing that human slavery is alive and thriving, then-President Bill Clinton signed into law the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

In a recent editorial, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that this piece of legislation not only greatly extended the reach of criminal anti-trafficking laws, it also created more tools to bring traffickers to justice, and to provide victims with legal services and other support. “Today, police officers, activists, and governments are coordinating their efforts more effectively. Thousands of victims have been liberated around the world and many remain in America with legal status and work permits,” she said.

But the Trafficking Victims Protection Act also helped lead the way for 115 other nations to write laws banning human trafficking, said Ambassador Luis CdeBaca, head of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Together, these laws have resulted in a global increase in the number of victims rescued and perpetrators brought to justice, he said.

Nonetheless, writes Secretary of State Clinton, we still have a long way to go. According to the most recent Trafficking in Persons report, which is issued annually by the U.S. State Department, 19 countries have curtailed their anti-trafficking efforts in the past year, and 13 countries failed to meet the minimum standards for eliminating trafficking, and are not trying to improve.

“We need to redouble our efforts to fight modern slavery,” writes Secretary of State Clinton. “The problem of modern trafficking may be entrenched, but it is solvable. By using every tool at our disposal to put pressure on traffickers, we can set ourselves on a course to eradicate modern slavery.”

A SECOND earthquake hit Indonesia last night, just hours after US President Barack Obama arrived for a brief visit as part of his nine-day tour of Asia.

The magnitude 5.2 earthquake hit at 7:39pm local time.

The earthquake struck at a depth of 69kms and about 193kms south-south-east of Jakarta, the Indonesian capital located on the northwestern coast of Java, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Earlier, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake hit western Indonesia.

That quake struck at a depth of 45km, around 167 kms southwest of Padang, in Indonesia’s eastern region of Kepulauan Mentawai at 6:16pm local time. The area is some 600 miles northwest of Jakarta.

Both quakes occurred shortly after Mr Obama arrived in the Indonesian capital.

As Expected: Kagan Refuses To Recuse Herself From Deciding, as a Judge, On the Constitutionality of ObamaCare That She Advocated For as an Administrative Official
—Ace

Ethics don’t apply when you’re waging truth.

nder federal law (28 U.S.C., 455(b)(3)), judges who have served in government must recuse themselves when they have “participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy.”
A federal judge is required by law to recuse himself “in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

“This has been interpreted to mean that the mere public expression of a legal opinion isn’t disqualifying. But this is no routine case,” the Journal said in July. “Kagan should not undermine public confidence in her fair-mindedness by sitting in judgment on such a controversial case that began when she was a senior government legal official.”

There’s hope for all of you that think Meg and Carley should have won…

Maybe they will run for President, while “Calif. is just too damn blue”.

Maybe they can move to TX and they can chase out Perry for you Texans. 😉

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[snip]
The former EBay chief stumbled frequently, from shaky debate performances to the revelation that she employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper for nine years. And voters grew weary of the unrelenting negativity of her ads.

Whitman’s juggernaut campaign, on which she spent $141.5 million of her personal fortune, is being castigated as a disaster. Her highly paid consultants underestimated Brown and were unable to take advantage of unlimited resources and the best political climate for Republicans since 1994. More Californians supported the legalization of marijuana than the election of Whitman. (And the pot bill went down in a puff of smoke too.)

The former EBay chief’s campaign staff has hunkered down, blaming the loss not on their own mistakes but on California’s demographics.

“Too damn blue,” said Rob Stutzman, a senior advisor.

Political observers say the likelihood of either candidate running for political office in California again is uncertain. But many expect to see them on the campaign trail in 2012. Whitman has said she would reprise her role backing her mentor, former Massachusetts Gov. Romney. Fiorina was endorsed by several potential presidential contenders, including Romney, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, but has not aligned herself with any of them.

Others noted that with their business backgrounds, either could be a future appointment for a Republican president, possibly a Cabinet pick.

“There are not that many Republican women who would be on a shortlist on any kind of appointment,” said Jennifer Lawless, director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University.

NYTs article throws the Blue Dogs under the bus and now is leading the lemmings off the cliff…

[snip]

“Democrats would be in better shape, and would accomplish more, with a smaller and more ideologically cohesive caucus,” Ari Berman, a writer for The Nation, argued in a New York Times Op-Ed in October. In an e-mail after the election, Jim Dean, who now runs the liberal group Democracy for America, founded by his brother Howard, told supporters that the progressive candidates who lost had been victimized by “corporate Democrats who refused to stand up and fight for real change.”

The theory here, embraced by a lot of the most prominent liberal bloggers and activists, is that centrist Democrats doomed the party when they blocked liberals in Congress from making good on President Obama’s promise of bold change. Specifically, they refused to adopt a more populist stance toward business and opposed greater stimulus spending and a government-run health care plan. As a result, the thinking goes, frustrated voters rejected the party for its timidity.

There are a few strange things about this argument, even beyond the contention that American voters — 41 percent of whom described themselves as “conservative” this year, compared with 32 percent in 2006 — somehow deem Congress to be insufficiently liberal.

For one thing, many of these same liberal activists were saying something very different in 2006, when Rahm Emanuel, who was then overseeing House campaigns for the party, recruited a slate of less ideological candidates to compete in more conservative districts. Some leading bloggers then — who are now proponents of the Blame the Blue Dogs theory — proclaimed themselves to be against ideological litmus tests, arguing that the most important thing was to choose candidates who could actually win.

This was the same moment when Howard Dean, the unofficial leader of the progressive movement, was telling anyone who would listen that the Southern guy with a Confederate flag in his truck, as Mr. Dean invariably described him, should be a Democratic voter, too. The whole point of Mr. Dean’s “50-state strategy” as party chairman was to find candidates who could win everywhere.

Apparently it was easier for liberal activists to countenance ideological diversity when they were out of power. Now that the party has had to make the requisite compromises in order to pass major legislation, such a “big tent” vision of governing no longer seems so appealing.

Second, while House Republicans have now managed to cobble together a majority that is more or less ideologically cohesive, history would suggest that the same feat isn’t so easy for Democrats, who have actually never succeeded in pulling it off. Even during the great heyday of Democratic government in the 20th century, when the party enacted Social Security and Medicare and civil rights legislation, its dominance was possible only because Democrats had shaped a majority coalition made up of Northern liberals and Southern conservatives.

Similarly, it’s hard to imagine how Democrats in this last Congress could have assembled a majority and passed the president’s agenda — including what is arguably the most consequential social legislation since the Great Society — without having fielded victorious candidates in a lot of conservative districts in 2006 and 2008. In a memo just before the election, titled “Why Liberals Need Heath Shuler,” Jon Cowan and Anne Kim of the centrist group Third Way summed it up this way: “Call them ‘fake Democrats,’ but they delivered a real majority.”

In the end, perhaps this is why Ms. Pelosi won’t be so quick to marginalize the remaining Blue Dogs if she retains her role as leader — no matter what her liberal supporters would prefer. The departing speaker, as everyone knows, can count votes. And for Ms. Pelosi, now 70, to write off the conservative districts where Democrats just lost could well mean writing off her chance of becoming speaker again.

70 should be the retirement age for the Senate and the House. When you got to carry them in on a stretcher, blood running on an I.V. pole, I think they should quit afterall THEY have a retirement to rely on.

IOW- investors are filing suit to get their money back.
This is a major development in the Banking flap.
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Since the housing bubble burst more than three years ago, lenders have been fending off legal challenges from homeowners who say they were duped by bad mortgages. Now the industry faces a potentially more formidable adversary: “investors who bought bonds backed by those bad loans.”

Citibank became the latest lender to disclose that it faces legal challenges from investors demanding a refund on billions of dollars lost on bonds backed by faulty loans. On Friday, Citibank disclosed in a regulatory filling that Charles Schwab, the Federal Home Loan Banks of Chicago and Indianapolis and a hedge fund have filed lawsuits claiming the bank misled them when it sold bonds backed by pools of home mortgages.

The key issue: Who will take the losses for billions of dollars worth of failing mortgages written during the height of the housing boom?

Investors are pursuing several strategies, but they generally center on a promise made in the documents that created bonds backed by mortgages. These so-called “representations and warranties” assured investors that certain underwriting standards would be followed.

..Yet underwriting was often lax during the boom years, with lapses including inflated appraisals, overstated incomes and false assurances that a borrower would live in the house he was buying.

“If you tell my bondholders that this is an owner-occupied property and it’s not owner-occupied, that’s an incorrect fact,” said Kathy Patrick, a Houston-based attorney representing investors who want Bank of America to buy back bad mortgages. “And an owner of occupied property has very different credit qualities than an investment property where somebody has 20 properties and may default strategically.”

Patrick is representing a high-powered investor group that includes Freddie Mac, Pimco Investment Management, Blackrock Financial Management and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which took over mortgage-backed investments held by American International Group.

Lenders have vowed to put up a vigorous defense against the claims, arguing that investors who bought mortgage-backed bonds knew they were taking a risk. Just because those bets aren’t paying off, lenders say, investors shouldn’t expect to get their money back.

“If you think about people who come back and say, ‘I bought a Chevy Vega but I want it to be a Mercedes with a 12-cylinder,’ we’re not putting up with that,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told analysts and shareholders in a conference call with last month. “We’re protecting the shareholders’ money.”

Lawyers representing mortgage bondholders don’t see it that way.

“That argument is just dead wrong,” said Alcott Franklin, a Texas attorney who is helping investors take on lenders. “These are warranty claims. Whether we bought a Vega or a Mercedes, it was under a warranty. And they violated the warranty.”

Related: Send us your tips about loan modifications, foreclosures

In many of these cases, investors are invoking language in the bond offering that allows them to force the lender to buy back a bad loan, a process known as a “put back.”

At the height of the housing boom, rising home prices allowed mortgage originators to replace failed loans with freshly-written performing mortgages. Lenders, originators, investors and borrowers all assumed that there was little risk in churning out new mortgages because even if a loan defaulted, the rising value of the home securing it would minimize any potential losses.

But when home prices began falling, many of those bad loans came back to haunt the companies that had underwritten them. With demand for new mortgages drying up, there weren’t enough new loans to replace the ones that were going bad.

With home prices still falling and mortgage defaults rising, losses on foreclosed homes are hitting even those investors holding top-rated bonds. By some estimates, at least as many homeowners are currently at risk of foreclosure as have already lost their homes.

“It took a while for the losses to eat through and start to affect the majority of investors,” said Franklin, the Texas attorney. “Now that that’s happening, there’s going to be more interest” in these loss claims.

The claims are complicated by restrictions that require a minimum number of investors from a given pool of mortgages – often 25 percent – to file a claim. That has been difficult because many mortgage pools were sold off to dozens or hundreds of different investors.

To overcome that hurdle, Franklin has set up a clearinghouse for investors to find each other. He estimates his database has grown to holders representing more than a third of the $1.5 trillion market in mortgage-backed securities – “and it’s growing every day by leaps and bounds.”

The potential cost of these claims will depend on how many more homes are lost to foreclosure, how much further home prices fall, how far the value of those properties will have to be written down when those foreclosed homes are sold.

“This could be a large hit for the entire industry,” said Brian Maillian, CEO of Whitestone Capital Group, which advises investors. “When you look at the scope of the problem, it’s a very, very large problem. We really don’t know how deep the hole is.”

Goldman Sachs recently estimated that “put backs” could cost the four largest lenders – Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citibank – a combined $26 billion. Goldman Sachs estimates more than 12,800 put back claims had been filed cumulatively as of the third quarter – up from 7,500 claims a year earlier.

Working through those claims – in some cases loan by loan – could take years. As long as lenders continue to post healthy profits, that lengthy process would work in lenders’ favor. By spreading the losses over several years, lenders hope to pay most of the tab with future profits.

..That could hurt shareholders as fears of future losses weigh on lenders’ share prices, which have declined as the pace of claims has quickened. But it would help lenders avoid a sudden hit to their balance sheets.

Because mortgage-backed bonds are widely held by insurance companies, endowments, pensions and mutual funds, the impact could be widespread, said Franklin.

“Where you’re really going to see the hit is off in the future a few years, when there’s no money to pay your life insurance policy or when your pension is gone or when your mutual fund is unable to pay you the interest rate they promised you,” Franklin said.

Once again i find my self wondering whether she has wandered into a dark closet and grabbed the 1st thing then got dress advice from a blind person. Her dresses lately have been like something you’d run up on a sewing machine with a potato sack. Does she make these herself?

“Democrats would be in better shape, and would accomplish more, with a smaller and more ideologically cohesive caucus,” Ari Berman, a writer for The Nation, argued in a New York Times Op-Ed in October. In an e-mail after the election, Jim Dean, who now runs the liberal group Democracy for America, founded by his brother Howard, told supporters that the progressive candidates who lost had been victimized by “corporate Democrats who refused to stand up and fight for real change.”
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I have got to hand it to the Bolsheviks. They never run our of ideologues. When this clown says the dims will accomplish more as a minority of true believers than they did as a majority with a more diverse team it is clear to me that he does not know what he is talking about. More? No really, more what? I realize the woman he works for at The Nation is a silver spoon nut case, but he would do well to enroll in a Political Science 101 course at CCNY, because then he might learn that what he is describing is not a political party at all but a pressure group. And pressure groups may excite the passions of true believers like him but they do not win elections. Jay Cost hit the nail on the head the other day, when he said Obama and his accolades believe this is a leftist country, when in fact it is a country which operates in a much narrower range between center right and center right depending on the election cycle. That is why Bill Clinton today is loved and respected and Obama is not and never will be again. He had his hour in the sun, and now it is over.

So, it appears that in the short term, Admin’s question is being answered. Dimocrats are defeating the Detox Party.
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Which will drive them to the edge of extinction before they open their eyes. They are into denial starting at the very top.

Mrs. Smith – That article really is news. I feel a new bailout coming. Meanwhile, foreclosures are proceeding like wildfire, housing values sagging more and more, and the banks don’t want another hit on their balance sheets.

Anyway, the banks were guilty of criminal behavior. They’ve got to pay up sometime. Have you seen “Cleveland vs Wall Street”?